


the cinematics of semantics

by sybilius



Series: count to ten and run for cover [2]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: (not in the main ship), 70s AU, Angel's Leather Gloves, Blondie's Dramatic Entrances, Blondie's Notebook, Blow Jobs, Break Up, Dissociation, Explicit Sexual Content, Feet, Get together fic, Grief/Mourning, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Identity Issues, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Jealousy, Language, Letters, M/M, Manipulation, Melancholy, Organized Crime, Pining, Polyamory, Rope Bondage, Sex Work, The Godfather - Freeform, also breakup fic, anxieties, hitmen and assassins, movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-11-19 10:37:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: 1972. A hustler and a killer trade truths, try to pass them off as lies.Even under the flicker of a movie projector -- it proves harder than they expect.





	1. May 1972: The Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know I have no idea what The Other is about but it's a May 1972 film with a thematically appropriate title so..

_You've got your eyes narrow and shaded, watching the brown players zip back and forth. Their eyes and loose, almost languid curls don't quite match, their skin too dark, but that doesn't matter. Still reminds you of where he might be, while you're on this crusade._

_But he's not here, it's just you, slumped and smoking in the penalty box._

Blondie leans back and bites hard on the cigarillo, the cool air in the indoor rink making him feel a little more awake. The harsh cut of blades scraping through ice brings back decent memories, at least. He's been combing bars and sleeping in the summer sweat of his empty car for two days now, and still no dice on finding anything or anyone that seems like a plausible hustle. The dull ache in his empty stomach feels a little better in the cold.

_At least when you're alone he's not complaining about that._

Blondie hopes, wherever Tuco is, that he's getting a good meal.

One of the men who zips by is white-- though Blondie is sure he'd stand out even without that, his face as cragged and hollowed as the New Mexico desert. He's dressed no differently than the rest of the men there, but his skates are brand new, their blades cutting through the rust-stains left by the other players.

_He's a weak player, though, compared to what you can do with a pair of skates._

Blondie blows out the smoke while watching the man miss a shot at the goal, his teammates chattering their disappointment in a language whose syllables blend together to Blondie's ears. The man murmurs back, quietly, and he's pretty sure it's not in English.

One of the opposing team skates by with a crowing, drawn out _hey!_ and Blondie's stomach aches with a hunger that has very little to do with the fact that he hasn’t eaten.

_That's what's you're here for, though. Just rest up after that shower, hit the streets again. Just a matter of pairing up the right hand, calling the right bluffs, you’ll find something --_

“You looking to play?”

The man with the desert-hollowed face has stopped right in front of his vision. Blondie blinks, trying to get a read on the man's expression. Nothing other than that he might also play poker, and that he'd probably be better at that than he is on the ice.

“Not without skates, I can't. 'Sides. Something to be said for watching,” Blondie lets his eyes flicker covetously over the man's body, just to see if he's as goddamn oblivious as most of them are.

_You'll get a laugh or a fight and either way that'll pass the time._

The man blinks once through surprise-- then his face falls back to that same poker face.

“Alright,” he steps off the ice, passing Blondie with an indifference Blondie is almost envious of.

 _But that, you can do at least as well_.

The man returns with a pair of rentals, a little scuffed, but no rust on the blades. He drops them on the bench next to Blondie. From this angle, the lines in his face are cavernous.

“Our team is missing a player, if you’re up for it,” he cocks his head, gesturing to a pile of hockey sticks that lean next to the rink entrance. From another man, that would have seemed like a friendly gesture. Blondie catches the scent of a challenge in it .

“Hey, Gora!” One of the players calls, “Come on, we could use you out here!”

The man-- Gora, Blondie supposes his name is, though the syllable doesn't suit him one bit, waves back and gets on the ice without looking to see if Blondie took him up on the offer.

_Can't hurt, to show them what you can do. Movement on ice suits you, at least as far as the poker table does. So maybe this ‘Gora’ has an interest. Can't do any harm for you to see that through._

_Even if you're tired._

Blondie cinches the skates tight-- a tiny bit too big, but passable-- and grabs the tallest stick. As soon as his blades hit the surface he remembers the Wisconsin winters, getting chased off for impromptu games on the ice road.

_For a time Wallace was the best player-- but you outpaced him too._

He lets the ice spray hard when he skates over to the man who'd called. He’s burly and with a few missing teeth-- shorter than Blondie, though. Most of them are.

“Can ya play a good attack? We're the blues, yanks” the man's accent is nothing like Tuco's, when he listens to it. Blondie nods.

_You weave in and out between the players with the blue bands, some on their arms, some on their legs. You don't bother with a marker. You slip the puck out from the red forward, who yells something that might be a curse. Before the reds can figure out what hit them, you've slapshotted the puck between the goalie's legs to home._

Blondie allows himself a slight, wry smile. It's still there, still almost too easy. The men chatter back and forth to themselves, still in that language he’s never heard in his life. Or Blondie’s fairly sure. He’s crossed a lot of state lines in his time. It all gets to sounding the same.

“Hey, Mac. Not bad. Not bad at all,” the man with the missing teeth stops a little sloppy next to him.

_You just nod, face impassive again. Not like this means much to you, a scrambled hockey game after days on the streets. You've seen all kinds like this._

“Very nice,” Gora has appeared next to him-- for all that he's not much of a player, he is _quiet_ on ice. Maybe that's just his sharp-bladed skates.

“We're down four, but let's see if you can't catch us up in this last period.” the toothless man grins.

_None of them seem to mind they don't know your name. Keep it that way. Keep your eyes on the play._

He pulls off, watching Gora tear down the ice with the puck, this time managing to ricochet it in. Their forward tries to make the same quick play, before the others on the team are set.

_You check him efficiently, nothing a ref could possibly call, but throwing off his balance and slipping the puck out to the toothless man who yells out like he's mad with it and makes a cockeyed shot that misses by a mile. You don't glare though, just shake your head once, you can do this all day._

_And it doesn't take long at all for you to tie the score, your only opponent that mediocre forward--_

The siren blares, cutting through Blondie's thoughts. There are disgruntled noises from both teams, but no one skates up center to setup a shootout for the tie.

“Overtime?” Blondie looks over his shoulder for Gora, or possibly the toothless man. One of them is calling the shots.

“Team got the ice after us,” one of the other players shakes his head, passing Blondie. Blondie goes to follow, but stumbles slightly, a wave of dizziness washing over him. He pushes through it, but misses the edge of the rink, almost tumbles--

“Careful.”

Gora has caught his arm, tugging him upright and letting his hand linger for half an instant, clapping his back.

_He shouldn't have seen you like that._

Blondie pushes past him to grab his duffel bag, head to the locker room. Which isn't smart, he knows, given the small chance this man might be something of a hustle. But his ankles hurt from all the walking he's been doing, and it's hard to keep that off his face.

_You came here to get a shower and cool off. No sense looking for marks in a place like this._

There are three slightly grey, exposed showers tucked in the corner of the room. The layout reminds Blondie a little of another rink in North Carolina. Once he's stripped off the skates and clothes, he turns on the shower, the blast of icy water rattling through his gritted teeth. Tuco, of course, had yelled and cursed until it reached a lukewarm temperature. That room had a lock on it though-- and time to make use of it.

He considers trying for a shave, rustling around in his duffel for the soap. The water has warmed up marginally, just so that tilting his head underneath the stream actually feels good.

It's then he notices in his peripheral vision -- reflected in the mirror just around the corner. The man Gora, quietly packing up skates in a much newer bag. Blondie focuses on scrubbing his legs, but can't help but glance back when the man throws off his jacket. He's carrying a gun in a shoulder strap-- no. Two of them, one on his hip, concealed by the length of the coat. Blondie stares back at the draining water, considering the reasons why a rich white man packing that kind of iron would spend time here.

_You carry a gun. Wayne might carry two. Sometimes it's about what a man needs to be respected._

He steals another look, this time the man has pulled off his sweater, the wiry muscle on his back marked by at least one scar -- maybe more--

“You're not nearly as subtle at that as you seem to believe.”

Blondie's hand slips on the bar of soap, spiraling on the floor towards the drain.

_You turn, don't pick it up, don't look at it. Let him look at you, while you measure the ways he enjoys looking._

He has a sharp, considering gaze in the mirror-- it's easy to see lust in it, for certain, but it seems like he's taking measure of Blondie. Like Blondie might be something dangerous, temptation for even the saints, perhaps. Or worse.

_It's probably good for the scene that look goes to your dick a bit. Street hockey prodigy with a sinner's streak, waiting for the right rich man to get in his corner. You can play that._

Blondie pulls a dirty towel out of his bag. He doesn't cover himself, just wipes his face and shakes the warm water off his hands before passing out of the mirror's vision. He pulls on the cleanest clothes he has, deliberately slowly, while the man watches, mere feet away. Then he looks the man in the eye.

“Ask me to have dinner with you.”

“Have dinner with me,” he doesn't even flinch, just raises an eyebrow and resumes folding the sweater he'd worn in the rink.

“That wasn't asking.”

“Come on.”

_You ought to resent that one._

_It’s something you could have said. If you were him._

That thought settles to his exhausted feet. Blondie shoulders his duffel bag, and follows the man out the door. The early evening hasn't broken the heat a damn degree, the humidity settling on Blondie's forehead like a heavy blanket. Getting out of his car for a night -- Blondie hates that he’s looking forward to that. He shouldn’t need that. The man's car is as nice as his skates, one of those Firebirds, though in innocuous blue.

 _If it were yours it would be red. If it were Tuco’s ...probably yellow, or purple, even_.

Blondie gets into the passenger’s seat, still thinking about his partner’s horrific sense of style. The man’s eyes are intent on him, making it difficult to stay aloof.

“So. You didn’t give your name.”

_You hesitate, on the name on your lips. Without Tuco, the dye, it doesn't quite make sense here, does it?_

“Manco. People call me Manco.”

_You're Manco, lone road rider, easy to underestimate. Could charm the birds from the trees if you chose to, but most of the time you choose to stay in with whoever's bed you're sharing for the night. What you do is -- something dangerous, something you're running from. But you're good at it too, better even than you are on ice._

Yeah, he figures he can work with _Manco._

“And you’re...Gora?”

The man laughs then deep and chasmous enough to make the sweat on Manco’s face feel almost cold, “No, no, that’s not my name. You can call me Angel Eyes.”

Manco would have laughed, but something in the man’s wicked gaze sticks it in his throat.

Angel Eyes. He steals a glance to the rearview mirror, and the man holds his stare, just as arresting as when he’d caught him watching in the locker room.

Now that, Manco has to admit, is a name that suits him far better.

* * *

 

Four in the morning has the most peculiar sense of dawn.

The grandfather clock chimes from the study down the hall, barely audible but it sounds like a carillion against the soft rhythm of his breath.

He's still asleep.

Of course he is, I didn't misread his exhaustion when I caught his arm on the rink -- but then, why then? Why there? Of course by now I mistrust serendipity, _et in Arcadia ego_. But there must be some way to make sense of it all.

There's been a thousand inconsistent explanations running through my mind all night -- why there, a rink dominated by a small community of Indian-Americans? If not to cause trouble, and he would hardly be the first, even in the scant year I'd been there to shoulder some of the responsibility for warding off those with ill intent.

(They'd hesitated to do the same with me, when they learned I could respond in Punjabi-- of course, the weight of words is different in your mother tongue, my mentor would have said. So trust, if not some degree of camaraderie, was established.)

Was it truly as simple as wanting that chance to demonstrate his considerable skills on the ice? He certainly seemed to have a relished indifference to his impact on the game, the attention it attracted. To an observer, it was simply about the game, not the people in it. Or perhaps -- his role in it.

Then there was the matter of that covetous glance, barefaced in its lust and almost exaggeratedly so. I still second guess the surprise I caught in his eye, when I gave him due consideration. But there was no mistaking his intent in the locker-rooms after.

I place one finger to my neck, bruises from where he'd sucked with almost vicious sweetness last night.

By far the worst of all this winding misdirection is that it's the most interesting thing to fall under my purview in weeks.

A few minutes pass, just as the others, with nothing but his steady breathing against the sheets. Then he twitches, just once, a movement from deep sleep. I know exactly the amount of time (two and a half seconds) it would take to drive the penknife behind the headboard into his neck.

His brow furrows and his eyes open, finding mine a full three seconds later.

He blinks slowly, eyes blue as the endless open sky.

Then he rolls over, back to me. After a few minutes his breathing returns to the cadence of sleep.

Well. If nothing else he doesn't see my watchfulness as a cause for concern, which is its own form of unusual. Or perhaps he simply enjoys the watching --

Never mind, this is taking me nowhere except along Galician labyrinths of the very same thoughts I have been having for hours. No progress. So I ought to take some action. There’s enough light out that it makes sense to dress for the morning’s exercise.

 _Manco_ , as he said his name was, does not stir. Whether it to mean absence or a missing limb...it's no name I've heard before. Funny to trade a false name with my true one. Likely reckless. I consider the softness in his cheeks. So strange and innocent he looks in sleep. Even as I restore the gloves to my hands, I am tempted to leave them bare, run my hand over the stubble there one last time.

But the most consistent explanation by far is that he’s prostituted himself in one way or other, whether for food or for rest or even to pursue the so-called sin he’d practically goaded himself into.

That, I could admit to being deficient of, as of late.

 _You look dead on your feet,_ I’d said when he’d approached after dinner. He’d smirked, the shadows under his eyes _tenebroso_ in the low light of the dining room. _I’m more than alive enough._ He’d surprised me, his crushing kiss gently spiced from the _fideuà._

I’d surprised myself, letting him pull off my gloves that way. Nothing for it now.

If I’m correct about this particular theory, he’ll likely try to run out with something meaningless while I am out of the room. So it goes. There’s little here worth taking a life over.

Now that thought comes with no small irony.

Along the grounds of the mansion I take one of fifteen different routes in circulation; quick sprint with a weave in my run, difficult in principle for a sniper to predict. The route passes all the small markers of the landscape. First, the pinyon pine with its lower branches stripped and the upper ones far too high to noticeably reach. Its smell just barely reaches the earth below. Then, the fountain, a decidedly Italian design. _A ogni uccello il suo nido è bello_ , though most times I pass it I wonder if I ought to reduce it to rubble, add a Spanish design to match the exterior of the _hacienda_. The garden blurs past into thoughts, movement. Muscle memory.

Autopilot can itself be dangerous, can it not?

I slow my run to focus a pair of binoculars through the south gate. Nothing but the streak of the red road back to town.

So that's more than half of the morning routine done during the early summer sunrise. My mentor would often sleep poorly as this, quieting the endless loopholes running through her mind, gaps in our safety. She had a much smaller home, in a gated community she knew every home and the names within it, most of when they woke and where they went. Surrounded by people, all of it like clockwork. And her, returning to set traps for me, or I for her, our own strange good morning.

I always think of her too much, come this time of year.

She wouldn't have wanted me to think of her at all.

What she would want me to do is return to the indoor shooting range that was my first specification when this home was built; and shoot two hundred rounds across four different handguns. Each making their mark perfect, head, heart, up to my discretion.

The same as any other day.

By the time I make it to the dark marble of the shower, I’ve ceased to linger on the spark of questions about my unusual houseguest, turning my attentions to the Slater Gala floor plan in my mind. That kill will be in two weeks time. The details are, as always, impeccable, _mors ultima ratio._

I always liked the translation of ‘accounting’, its meaning doubled in English. Assassinations are best thought of as accountings.

When footsteps sound outside the bathroom door, it is my turn to let the soap drop to the floor, instinctively ducking in case of gunfire. But it’s simply Manco, tilting his head consideringly before taking my curious stare as permission to enter.

Further, permission to enter the shower, and run an esurient hand across my ass-- even as my hands tense close to the razor on the shelf. Among the handful of other killers I’ve taken as sexual partners, not one would have the foolishness to subject themself to this level of vulnerability, in another killer’s home. I let my bare hands travel along his body, checking for weapons -- yes -- but the temptation I can’t deny, either.

“You slept well, I take it?”

“Mm,” he nods, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips when his eyes flicker down to my hardening cock. I school my features. I need more information, no denying it.

“Seemed like you needed it, from wherever you were coming from -- Manco,” the name tastes strange and almost natural to say it aloud. But he reacts with a familiarity, at the very least I can be sure he’s used to being referred to as such by others than myself.

“Been on the road a long time. Angel Eyes. Well, it’s half a fitting name, I’ll give you that much. Eyes like Lucifer, so fitting enough.”

I have to smile then, normally it’s myself who has to point that out to intrusive colleagues. “My mentor gave me the name.”

An innocent truth, to offer him. Nothing in it. There’s a funny giddiness, in dropping meaningless truths like the warm rain of the water above us.

“So. What’s all of this?”

He offers nothing in return but another question.

“My...home?”  
  
“Isn’t the kind of home I’ve ever been in,” he glances at the malachite pillars framing the walls, rich green paired with the dark granite,  “What is it you do?”

Ah. To have such wealth, so carelessly and with such solitude. The old lie rises on my tongue, how long has it been since I’ve had to offer it?

How long has it been since one who knew my name would not already know the wariness it should be taken with?

“I’m an assassin for hire.”

Such a stupid thing to say -- and yet, the surprise in his eyes, there for a moment, is as genuine as I’ve ever seen it. Then it vanishes, replaced by that practiced cynicism.

“Can’t picture that.”

I laugh then, at his disbelief, _dio bestia,_ of course that would be his response. Of course.

What remains surprising, though, is the intensity with which he kisses the laughter from my lips.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations:
> 
>  _et in Arcadia ego_ \- Latin. Even in Arcadia, there I still am. 
> 
> _A ogni uccello il suo nido è bello_ \- Italian. To every bird their nest is beautiful.
> 
>  _mors ultima ratio_ \- Latin. Death is the final accounting.
> 
>  _dio bestia_ \- Italian. Literally "god beast", a sort of minor swear. 
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 thoughts appreciated!


	2. June 1972: Frenzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the film Frenzy is probably better suited to the next chapter than this one. So it goes. 
> 
> With my thanks to mcicioni for her help with the Italian and her beta thoughts!

It’s an old, dull ache, rolling over in bed to find the other side empty. Too familiar. Manco blinks the sleep out of his eyes, remembering a leather-gloved hand on his face and the brush of lips on his, far too early in the morning.  
  
_You did know this was coming._  
  
Angel had told him just a few days after he’d arrived, that he’d be gone for business purposes for a few days on the fifteenth. The days have turned to weeks far faster than Manco expects, after the slow crawl of those months on the road. He sits up, rubbing his eyes and suddenly remembering he’s long overdue for a letter to Tuco.  
  
_Of course, that makes its own sense. It’s not you that misses him, not in this hustle._  
  
Even that’s a thought that stops short, as he crosses the north bedroom in his boxers to seek out the jeans he’d left in the southwest bathroom. He’s been a lot of things in Angel’s house, shifting to suit the many rooms he’d at first thought were endless. They each have their own character.  
  
There were bedrooms, of course; he was reasonably certain they’d fucked in all of them by now. Some of them blatant in opulent perversion, others more demure, but always dripping with wealth. After the first night, Angel had taken him to the north bedroom, all brick and near-medieval stylings; tapestries and red velvet.  
  
_He’d placed on hand on your neck then, his eyes searing, searching and said, ‘I want to know how you want pleasure.’_  
  
_You’d swallowed and said, 'Rope.’ before the guilt could choke you out._  
  
_And he’d smiled like the devil cradling a bought soul–_  
  
All told, Manco wasn’t opposed to spending most of their nights there.  
  
The days were fairly easy to pass inside as well.  A library with high windows; dark wood shelves packed tightly with books– many in Italian, some in English, a smattering in Latin. Manco allows himself a small smile remembering the way Angel’s brow had knitted, then softened when he’d quoted Seneca back to him. They’d done little but read and trade quips and quotes that afternoon, had retired to bed after dinner without even considering a fuck.  
  
_Remember what you’re doing this for. Who you’re doing it for._  
  
Manco found his pants and blue shirt neatly folded on a velvet settee in the bathroom– certainly not how he left them. He hadn’t seen any staff besides Angel’s cook– but perhaps that was how Angel prefered it.  
  
_If it were you owning all this, you wouldn’t let anyone fold your damn pants. Especially if the money put so much blood on your hands._  
  
There was the matter of the shooting range, just down the staircase a room over. There, Manco had gotten a chance to make use of all those times he’d spent on the road, keeping his draw in. Angel Eyes had pursed his lips in that curious, all too tempting approval. He was far better at marksmanship than he was at hockey– but still bare inches behind Manco’s accuracy.  
  
Manco frowns, pulling on his shirt. If Angel was the assassin he insisted he was – well, the job would come easily if Manco decided to try it, if it just came to shooting.  
  
_He’s got the sense that’s what you’re running from, taking refuge from here. You’ve dodged the question of why you’re on the road, trying to get off of it. Maybe someone you killed._  
  
_Maybe someone you didn’t._  
  
If Angel Eyes sympathizes with that – a fond warmth fills the pit of Manco’s stomach. The man had avoided most direct questions. Manco got the sense he was enjoying trying to piece it together.  
  
_So you make sure he’s got skin in the game before he figures it out._  
  
It’s one thing to have a story and stick to it; but it always makes a better hustle if the mark has something personal in believing it. He has that look about him, like he’s always weighing what Manco says against life and death, gunsight-focus in the way his eyes narrowed.  
  
_You lied when you said it was hard to picture. You picture it all the goddamn time._  
  
After he’s pulled on his clothes, a familiar discomfort begins to creep up in his stomach. Hunger. Intensified by the smell of sausage, lingering from – no, this was coming from the kitchen. It had been a month since he’d been hungry. Almost like an old friend.  
  
Manco hadn’t thought about Angel’s cook staying on while he was away. Come to think of it, he’s never been in the kitchen at all, in the month he’s been here. Once, Angel retreated in there, came out having made a rich soup Manco tacitly choked down.  
  
_An assassin cooking soup, that paints a funny picture for damn sure. Not that you’d ever be caught making something like that._  
  
When he comes into the dining room, the cook is at the table eating, another plate placed at the polished end of a long table they’d been supping at. Manco has half a suspicion this is the most use it’s gotten in a while. She tosses her blonde hair back, studying him with a half-smile. It reminds Manco of cheap dye and another name.  
  
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d know there was anything to eat, if I just had mine in the kitchen,” she says by way of explanation, “And I’ve got the only key.”  
  
Manco is somehow relieved that she hasn’t offered to retreat to the kitchen. He’s unsure how to treat a hired cook, especially considering Angel seems to treat her almost as a friend. He sits, nodding his thanks before taking a bite of the cheese and sausage omelette. It’s a little cold, but better than having to ask for it.  
  
“I could have made something different, if you like.”  
  
“It’s good.”  
  
“I was considering porridge and fruit tomorrow, it that suits,” her omelette is steaming. She must have made his earlier, left it waiting.  
  
“Mhm. Thanks,” Manco doesn’t let the memory of forcing himself to swallow Joseph’s bland porridge show on his face. She stares a moment longer, just curious but– long enough that he feels an odd need to throw out an explanation, “Not used to having someone to cook for me.”  
  
“You know, he was like that too, of course –” she stops, as if considering whether that’s overstepping, “But you understand why that would be.”  
  
“I do, yeah,” keeping that vague, drawing her in with a bit of eye contact.  
  
She cocks her head, “So you’re staying out of that for now.”  
  
“It’s like he hasn’t left. This an interrogation?”  
  
“Birds of a feather…” she seems both flattered and amused by that.  
  
“You say that like you’ve known him a long time.”  
  
“Oh not so long, three– oh you are good. Does that work on him too?”  
  
“He tells me what I want to know.”  
  
“And what is it you want to know?”  
  
“S’far as he wants to tell me,” Manco leans back, that answer ringing right. She smiles, stands up to clear his plate.  
  
“Well, I can’t ask any better than that. Anything else you need?”  
  
_You passed her test. Funny person to get a test from, but you deserve a seat at this table, just the same._  
  
Manco lets that thought wash over him, eyeing the writing desk in the other room. But even with Angel gone– he can’t break character. Not here. The hustle is worth too much.  
  
_It would feel wrong, for you to write him here. So just take a drive, slip out there, head back._  
  
“There a movie theater anywhere in town?”  
  
“Huh. I believe so, let me get the phone book.”  
  
It turns out Black Mesa Twin Cinema isn’t far from there. And Angel had put gas in his car when they’d gone to town to get it; what little cash he had been saving for that still tucked under the front seat. He doesn’t have to ask for anything. With the road burning up behind him, it’s almost easy to imagine his partner by his side again. Once he stops in front of the dusty red dirt of the parking lot, he gets the postcard from Colorado out of the glovebox, leans back his chair to write on his knee.  
  
_Tuco,_  
  
_Found something like steady work a while._  
  
That isn’t what he looks forward to in the post cards, Blondie knows.  
  
_It’s not much, but I’ve got enough to pay to see_ Cowboys _again. Too bad that wasn't worth the admission._  
  
Blondie glances up at the marquee. The Way of the Dragon is what’s passing for matinee. Could be worse.  
  
_The car I told you about still limping along fine, so don’t you get worrying about me. I got a bed to sleep in most nights; someplace to think about you._  
  
Funny how that wasn’t a lie, but there was a lie in it. He’d lain alone a few nights, missing his partner like the sweet spring rain in Wisconsin. But then again, had he ever thought about Tuco when he was with another mark before? Nah, he couldn’t.  
  
He did miss him now, though.  
  
_I’m going to see this karate flick now. Don’t think there’s gonna be anyone there. Missed opportunity. Wish I could blow you during the credits._  
  
_Blondie_  
  
The strange thing about 'Manco’ isn’t how easy he is to slip out of. It’s that his ghost leaves its own absence in the pit of his stomach.  
  
_Different than the other hustles, then. You’re getting comfortable with this one. That’s a dangerous way to be. But you’re dangerous._  
  
Blondie feels like 'Manco’ ought to be, thinks it over in the cool shade of the afternoon film. Not dangerous like this – Chen? Whatever character Bruce Lee was swinging around nunchucks as.  
  
_No, you’re more like Michael Corleone, aren’t you? Decorated, circling the drain of your family’s dark history. Some day you’re going to fall right back in line, top of the heap and hating every second of it._  
  
Manco lights a cigarillo, liking the picture that paints. _The Godfather_. Definitely one of the better movies he and Tuco had snuck into. Tuco had a few good things to say about the Italians in it, though he fell asleep for part of it.  
  
Manco finds himself wondering if Angel might like it.

* * *

 

The strike of the match cuts cleanly through the heaving, slowing breaths. Manco takes it when I offer it gratefully, pulling out one of those brown paper cigarillos he favors. He brings up his knee to rest his arm on his bare leg, the sweat drying on his brown hair. The cigarillo looks natural between his fingers, and more so – he looks as natural in front of the brickwork of my favored bedroom as he did on his second night’s stay.

An entire month then, but more importantly– I’ve wanted him past the space of another job.

“How’d it go?”

“Neatly. Poisonings are often neat,” I purse my lips around the pipe. My mentor favored poisoning, and they have the advantage of subtlety. If all goes as planned, the death will be on record as a tragically poor dispensation of the mark’s medication. My patron will be pleased.

“If you can get the right stuff,” he says a moment later. I nod once. I’ve gathered that what little work he does with killing, he has access to far fewer resources. Likely why he’s on the run, I suppose.

He runs a hand across my bare shoulder absently, fingers lingering on the scar by my elbow.

The strangest detail by far of our tryst is that the sex has gotten better, rather than more pedestrian. Though little has changed about what we do. Perhaps it was the way he asked for rope, or more so, the way I never felt I had to make it clear to him that if I wanted him dead, it would be quick and have utterly no part in sexual encounter.

Why he should trust me, with his neck, with the thread of the veins on his wrist, with the careful strain of his breath? _Más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando_. I don’t question it. Not for the moment.

“Do you miss it?” I venture, a strange question to ask about ones work. Strange and light. I’ve occasionally considered doing as he is right now, though never had a reason to. Susan mentioned he went to see a movie the day I’d left. Something that wouldn’t have occurred to me.

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps– well, so many of the necessary muscles end up being used nonetheless. Watching your weak points. It would seem to me easier to take full advantage of that.”

“Didn’t say I wasn’t going back.”

“No. I don’t suppose anyone stays away long,” that thought turns bitter around the taste of Latakia. He tilts his head, making a study of me carefully.

The glint in his gaze is almost artistic. I’d seen him flipping through a notebook the other day, sketches in charcoal and graphite. I wondered if they were his– snatches of landscapes in many states I recognized. A few of a man with a considerable mustache and an impish grin that he’d shut as soon as he’d noticed my wandering eyes.

“S’easier if you have someone to watch your back, I figure. To walk away from it without missing it.”

I take the measure of him, trying to see what he means by that. A month is hardly a proposal for anything lasting. I’m still partially expecting this to end in attempted assassination, though my instincts tell me he’s got little skill that I couldn’t handle. But perhaps he isn’t referring to me at all.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” I say, promising nothing. I’ll let him stay here – how long? How much longer?

At this rate, if he’s not planning to make an attempt on my life, he’ll be taken out by someone who will –

“You been out to see _The Godfather_ yet? Night is still young, and I think they had a late showing of it at the Black Mesa tonight.”

“No, I– Haven’t seen a film at a theatre for years,” I say truthfully. I didn’t expect the invitation– unless this is a casual way to draw me out of where I am most protected? I study his eager eyes carefully. They’re almost green in the lamplight.

“Well?”

“All right.”

He gets up right away, tossing me my jacket from where he’d tugged it off as soon as we’d gotten alone. There’s some kind of life glinting at the corner of his gaze, tugging at his mouth. Was this what people outside of the business of killing did?

Rather. He’s in the business, so that’s not a particularly useful question to ask. He picks up a glove from where I’d tossed it carelessly on the floor, all too needy to have my hands on him. When his bare fingers brush mine, passing me the glove, I feel an involuntary shiver.

He pauses with his boots, meeting my eye, “Wait a minute. You haven’t heard anything about it, have you?”

“Nothing.”

Then he smiles out of the corner of his mouth, that secretive ruefulness I’d seen a handful of times, “You’re lucky then. Nothing like the thrill of going in knowing nothing.”

I’d characterize that as a profoundly foolish philosophy, but it may well apply regarding film.

While we drive towards town in the bloodlike sunset, he rattles off a few technicalities; projection type at the theater, a bit of background on the director. From that I am able to intuit this much; the film has Italian influence, and is set in America. And the strange feeling he thought of me specifically when he proposed this –

But then, I suppose, I’ve given him enough of Leopardi and Dante for him to know that much about me. Our almost comically apt discussions of _La vita solitaria_  – but surely, neither of us would go so far as to use _a_ _more, assai lungi volasti dal petto mio_ to describe ourselves.

Fortunately the theatre seems to be generally poorly attended, making it easier to catch subtle movement in the dark. Darkness is itself a disadvantage, and the beginning of the film sheds little light on the corridors and seats where someone could hide.

_Then I said to my wife, for Justice, we must go to Don Corleone–_

–ah. This, then, is what made Manco connect the film to myself. When I take in the ageing mobster’s office in its entirety – regretfully, even I can see shades of my own in its style and decor. _Filius peccata patris per successionem accipiet_. I let my eyes linger on the projection a little longer, until the so-called Don fingers a red rose on his chest. Too much of a coincidence, for my patron not to have had a hand in it.

All of those under his patronage would say this much regarding Rose, he has a way of appearing that could surprise anyone. A necessary trait, in someone who spends most of their time ordering men dead, and keeping that under wraps.

I glance behind me before I can help it, Manco placing his hand carefully on my arm. My fingers tense without warning. He gestures to the film.

“Anything happens, we’ll handle it,” he mutters.

Alright. We’ll do it his way, for now. Or at least, since we’re sitting near the back, I can keep an eye on the aisle without looking away from the film too much. I let my fingers relax, one by one.

It’s near painfully unsurprising, watching Michael Corleone’s resolve that he should escape the shadow of his family fall away immediately when Vito is gunned down. _Il sangue non è acqua_ – and one could drown trying to deny that.

Myself, I never tried. I took my freedom in what little measure I could, for certain, never once considered washing my hands of the blood I was offered as my inheritance.

I wonder, then, if it makes me believe Michael Corleone is noble or naive for his resolve to do so, for his failures. And as he falls deeper into the one role I see as beyond me, I can’t help but feel repulsed by him. Hypocrisy, so common in the underworld. In the world, perhaps.

By the time the credits roll I’ve lost count of the minutes since my eyes last did a sweep of the room. Dangerous, yes but – that be damned, I can see why Manco appreciates film as distraction. It’s immersive.

He takes his boots off the chair in front of me, his smile still as it was in my bedroom, “You can see why they’ve kept up the run since March.”

I nod seriously, “Let’s get something to eat.”

I have a sense that he will appreciate Mariana’s poor attempt at Italian cuisine, that it will leave us both with the lingering taste of the film. That’s a kind of vice I could almost say we share, attraction to that which promises narrative.

He has quite a bit to say about the Corleone narrative, as we drive out into the darkness of evening, the summer wind whistling through the open windows. Some of it naive, but almost charmingly so.

“And Corleone is a Italian name, lion-hearted,” he continues, sucking in the night air with a fever in his eyes.

“I noticed, that was an interesting detail.”

“Oh yeah– someone else who knows a bit of Italian pointed that out to me. Anyways, the entire Coppola family acted in it, you remember that boy in the baptism scene – beautiful scene, perfect symbolic contrast –”

I take my eyes off the road in the glow of a red light to give his description my full attention. It’s a breath of fresh air to hit on a real passion of his. I hadn’t appreciated the degree to which I was basking in his effortless indifference. There’s comfort in that, for certain, but seeing his eyes narrow and alight as he flickers through the ins and outs of scripting and cinematography alike is its own form of riveting.

As such, it’s not a hardship to let him tell me all he knows about a director turning The Godfather down for its themes, the surprising veracity of the horse head, the striking of the word ‘ _mafia_ ’ from any part of the film.

In short order we’re sharing a checked table at the back of Mariana’s, with a single glass of wine for company. In unknown territory I wouldn’t imbibe, but the first question I investigated when this restaurant opened its doors was whether it was connected to the mafia. Fortunately, not in this case, it’s owners are only themselves half-Italian.

“I didn’t get to ask you; what did you think?” Manco turns his full attention to me just as our waitress arrives with our pasta.

“I enjoyed it. Far more than I thought I would, given the subject matter,” I admit, then adjust it to his frown, “Business mixed with pleasure.”

“It’s a good story,” he leans back in his chair, reaching for a cigarillo for the first time since. A vice, or a way of hiding? Both, I suspect.

“Realistic, in fact.”

“And you would know, would you?”

“ _Intimamente_ ,” I lean forward, determined to let him have the full gravitas of what this film has tried to accomplish, “Let me tell you a story. Suppose our youngest Corleone was instead taught his father’s business, as he called it, from the moment he could speak.”

A dangerous tale to begin, I realize– but I want him to hear it.

“Perhaps it would be instructive to think of the child and father from the perspective of the Tattalia family, near-desperate to be more than pawns in the bloodstained business that Corleone sits at the helm of. This child would never be given Vito’s deathbed platitudes about wanting more for his son– no. He was born to this, for this, and all of his childhood would be swallowed by learning what it would take to advance his family name.”

“Then one day, much as our unfortunate Don,” this I have to pause and smile sardonically at. That’s one detail the film misses, I’ve never known a family head who wished to be called Uncle, “The child’s father falls to bed without waking. Poison. Very neat as I told you, the only thing the killer must make certain of is that it has done its work.”

The killer had, her lips pursing when she checked his pulse, dressed as a substitute for our usual maid. White gloves. She’d laid his hand to rest before pointing out her full knowledge of my presence.

_Are you going to kill me, little Angel Eyes?_

_No._

I’d only been sure of that when she’d spoken.

“So. What happens to kid Michael?” Manco asks carefully, “He old enough to take up after his father?”

I had believed I was, which even now I could call abstractly frightening.

“He was eleven. But no– no, he came to the assassin, when the job was done. He asked to be taken as apprentice,” I take up my wine, half-enjoying and half-loathing the slight widening of Manco’s eyes. Manco says nothing. The wine goes sour on my tongue.

“I’m sure you wonder– what kind of child would look upon such a murderer, the killer of the only parent they ever knew– and see something to learn from that act?” _Maledizione,_ this is far too close to a conversation I wish I didn’t remember, with a loud-mouthed colleague I knew even then wasn’t to be trusted–

“Guess he saw a way out. Or a way in.”

The silence between us is measured and truly exquisite, nothing like the uncomfortable laughter that Michael Corleone’s half-forgotten lover offered. There is neither shock, nor pity in the clear blue of his gaze by candlelight, now. And he keeps that silence, longer than I thought he would. Longer than I would have.

I think– and this is it’s own form of respect– he’s waiting for me to speak. To continue, to respond. Or to let the thread go, if I must.

 _Ad perniciem solet agi sinceritas_ , I shouldn’t have begun it in the first place. But I don’t regret it. Not in the least.

I twirl the tagliatelle around my fork, watching him hesitate to take another bite. A pedestrian change of subject, then, “You know this – is not particularly good pasta.”

“You picked it.”

“Surprisingly that’s not a complaint– more of a fond observation. I could get remarkable pasta from what Susan can make any day of the week if I wished. But no – when I go out I favor something that reminds me of my mentor.”

“The one who gave you the name Angel Eyes?” he remembers this well, about her. It grants me more warmth than I would admit to.

Though he doesn’t ask if this is the selfsame murderer in the fairy-story I gave him of my history – I would stake my life on him holding that thought just the same.

“Yes.”

“He sounds like an interesting person.”

“She,” I meet his eyes, “And yes. She was.”

He only inclines his head respectfully over the glass of wine. I find myself wishing he could have met her, if only to see what she would make of him. And what he would make of her.

I keep that thought poised on my tongue, taking a slow sip of my own wine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations, and notes on the text:
> 
>  _Más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando_ \- Spanish. A bird in the hand is worth more than a hundred flying. 
> 
> Latakia is a brand of tobacco that deepandlovelydark chose to be Angel Eyes' favourite. _La vita solitaria_ is a poem by Leopardi, about the 'solitary life'. 
> 
> _amore, assai lungi volasti dal petto mio_ \- Italian, taken from _La vita solitaria_. Meaning loosely, love taken so long from my breast. 
> 
> _Filius peccata patris per successionem accipiet_ \- Latin. The son inherits the sins of the father.
> 
>  _Il sangue non è acqua_ \- Italian. Blood is thicker than water. 
> 
> _Intimamente_ \- Italian. Intimately.
> 
>  _Ad perniciem solet agi sinceritas_ \- Latin. Sincerity is impelled to its own destruction.


	3. July 1972: Nightshade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the chapter warnings for the first section:
> 
> Graphic depictions of violence/murder, extremely poor coping, dissociation, explicit sex, ropekink.
> 
> This story has the structure of a delta function or something. Poor Blondie.

_Let me set the scene for you._

_You’re sitting in a terrace too goddamn beautiful for even Manco’s road-sanded mysteries. A fountain in the distance of a near-clear rolling New Mexico landscape, Adobe walls and curated patches of hardy flowering plants._

“Come da morte

Vivendo rifuggia, cosi rifugge

Dalla fiamma vitale

Nostra ignuda natura”

_Reading Leopardi._

“As it recoiled in living

from Death, so from the flame of Life recoils

our naked being–”

_Your lover stops short, and something in his gaze pushes you to your feet. He holds out a hand– you take a step back just as he pulls himself to standing._

_This isn’t going to be like anything you pictured, anything you’ve seen flickering on the screen._

Angel Eyes looks up.

Someone drops down.

_Gunshot, knocked from the figure’s hands faster than you can blink, where the hell did it go– the man’s in red, the man is red –_

_– the stones are red, horrible gurgling in your ears, and the gun lying next to it–_

Manco stares at the gun. Steps forward, picks it up, takes out the bullets. Turns.

_Fuck that is – a lot of blood._

_You have to keep calm._

Angel is holding the knife, scarlet running down his glove. He’s breathing hard, but his expression is at most resigned. No trace of human fear in it, even as he stares contemptuously at the body–

– the man, the corpse’s neck is mangled into so much meat. White and purple strands of red glistening insides. He’s stopped gagging. He’s only dripping now, pooling into the white tile.

_Look away._

He’s dressed in a camouflaged red, something that would blend into the New Mexico dirt, into Angel’s tiled roof where he’d hidden, waiting for his chance to try and put a bullet in Angel. In both of them.

 _Look away_ goddamn _it–_

Manco forces his gaze back to Angel. Walks past the body. Offers him the gun. Angel takes it with gloves slick with blood. The wall behind them is marked by the missed gunshot.

_You only get one shot._

That’s what Manco would have said. He fights a shudder, and Angel Eyes sees, his expression bleeding into something so damn exhausted.

_You need to get out of here._

Manco puts his hand on Angel’s shoulder. A tremor goes through Angel, he leans forward, still holding the knife in the hand that brushes Manco’s thigh. Rests his head, pulse audible next to Manco’s ear.

_Don’t retch, don’t let it show on your face, you idiot–_

Angel lifts his head, and goddamn if Blondie can’t hold back a scream–

_– he can’t see you –_

Blondie kisses him then, both hands framing Angel’s knife-sharp cheekbones. He hears the knife hit the terrace, dim and distant, Angel breathing hot and ragged in his ear.

“I should – check the grounds–”

“Fuckit, inside is safe, isn’t it?” Sounds a lot more sure than he feels.

_You guide him inside, past the body, pinning him to the wall as soon as you’ve turned a corner. He reverses your positions easily, pressing you sharp and certain, sucking the fear from your lips._

_Oh god if you could just stop_ seeing _it._

The north bedroom is mercifully close by, Angel strips off his gloves, the coagulating blood leaving a mark on the wooden countertop. He pulls Blondie’s shirt off roughly, running his bare hands over his chest.

“You could have easily have been shot.”

That registers as more of a strange buzz in Blondie’s ear, against the tremors building against sparks over his skin. Angel has captivating fingers, easy to take in, keep his eyes open. He unbuttons Angel’s shirt, near imitating his movements. His fingerprints skip over so many scars.

“How many times has it been for you?” Blondie’s fingers find a gunshot scar before he knows it, he could map Angel’s skin in his sleep by now.

“The last time this close started much like this– stab wound. Shallow, at least,” he traces a line along his hip, “I kept expecting you to try the same.”

“God above, _no_ ,” the thought makes him sick in a way that digs deeper than mere survival. He grips Angel’s arm hard. Angel leans forward and kisses the breath out of him, letting his soft hands drop lower along Blondie’s hips.

Blondie keeps his eyes wide open, drinking in the sight of Angel, stripping his clothes off lithe and eager. It gets him by the throat all of a sudden.

_He could have been shot same as you._

“Thank God you’re – that he didn’t – he–” it comes out all in a mess, no voice Manco has ever had Angel stops short, his brow knitting carefully. He places his hand on the side of Blondie’s face.

“Trust me, I’ve been through worse before and I will again. But you’re alright?”

_You’re not._

“I’m alive.”

_Not convincing enough._

“Alive and want to know it,” Blondie adds, and his voice doesn’t sound shaky, at least. Angel’s fingers relax a little, and Blondie dips his head down so he doesn’t have to look at his face, pulling off his pants with shaking hands.

There’s a numbness that he usually has to steel himself against, almost looks forward to, on his knees with a stranger’s dick down his throat.

None of it is strange though–

He knows the taste and length of Angel far too well by now, knows the way his breath hitches and shimmers into a moan. The man with the knife– the man under his mouth. One and the same, and fuck if that doesn’t spin back and forth between intoxicating and horrific.

_Hell of a good distraction– when did you start to look forward to this? Fucking him like a killer’s whore._

_How the hell did it come to this, Manco?_

He breaks off, the choking sensation in his throat going straight to his dick. His hands are all over a murderer, fucking someone who by all accounts flickered off a film reel into unreality, sin soaked into his black leather gloves.

_You’re with him._

The familiar black jute falls around his neck. He meets Angel’s gaze, lets the rope bring them eye to eye. Sees, for a half a moment, something the camera wouldn’t – something in the uncertain glint of desert-sand eyes.

_He needs this from you. So you give it to him._

Angel is most of the way gone, by now, neck straining, tendon against the rope that’s wrapped around both their necks. The rope tightens, heat coiling brutal and unbearable in his hips. He squeezes Angel’s dick, strokes it as the blackness builds on the edges of his vision, fuck, _fuck_ –

_– at least you can’t see it anymore–_

The pleasure rips through him just as he feels Angel shiver and dig his nails in hard. The gasp in his ear could be a death rattle, a last judgment.

But the rope loosens, and they’re both gasping, breathing hard in the sticky mess of their flesh.

_Now though. You’re not going to panic._

Blondie didn’t on the terrace and he’s not going to now. Not with Angel’s limbs tangled tightly around him, not when he’s worked so damn hard to keep the story alive.

“That was– so unbelievably – reckless–” Angel manages, breaking off with half a laugh, “Don’t think I’m not grateful. I shouldn’t be, should be checking the grounds but– a moment.”

Blondie leans forward to kiss Angel before he starts thinking again, thinking about the body on the terrace stones.

“You think there’s someone else out there?”

Angel pulls himself upright, squeezing the top of Blondie’s bicep, “I know the kind, they work alone. We’re as safe here as we’ve ever been.”

Those last words skip slightly over the image in Blondie’s mind. Angel’s brow knits, fuck, he hasn’t managed to school his features any better.

_You got this far. Come on._

“I might have warned you this place was poor refuge.”

“And I thought I was the one with a target on my back,” that’s good, it’s light. Sounds like Manco’s voice. He remembers, distantly, what he’d said to Angel their first morning together, “That was – easier to picture than I thought.”

_There you are._

Angel’s lips turn up in that wicked smile he has sometimes, “Cineri gloria sera venit. But we are, as you have said, alive.”

Manco almost turns to kiss him again, just manages to pull himself back to a practiced indifference. He’s dimly aware of his pounding heartbeat.

“The…body?”

“Yes, after a sweep– that’s the first order of business. Stay here. I’ll make the arrangements.”

It’s all Manco can do to nod blankly as he comes back to himself, while Angel pulls out a clean set of clothes, whisks out of the room as if this is as normal as taking out the garbage. He disguises his retch as a cough. Doesn’t matter, Angel has already left.

_You need to get the hell out of there. This is crazy._

Manco doesn’t move. He knows whose voice that thought belongs to.

And Tuco is never going to get tangled up in this.

Not if he can help it.

 

* * *

 

By the time he arrives, a bouquet of the damask variety of roses resting in his arm, I am already regretting contacting my patron.

Not that Rose would give me a choice in the matter.

I made the call but a few hours before, was surprised and yet – unsurprised to hear him insist on looking in to it personally. By now, it’s been long enough since Baker made him aware of Manco’s refuge in my home for him to become curious as to the nature of our connection.

 _Aggiungere legna al fuoco._ This complicates matters. Never has it been more pertinent to keep that intensity under wraps.

Rose sweeps in to the vestibule without introducing his new bodyguard. He tilts his head into the bouquet of roses, his smile just as wide as when I’d met him as a child. For that matter, his face may be less lined than mine, at this point.

“For your table, to mask the smell. They always did look lovely in that Titano vase.”

“Thank you,” I make sure to let the strain in my voice slip out. If Rose has any vice, it’s the petty game of bestowing gifts that assert himself over his patronages’ space and person. If I deny him the satisfaction of knowing it bothers me to arrange his symbol, in all it’s velvet scent, on my dining table– well, he will waste no time in finding a gift that will unsettle me further.

“It’s been several months, has it not, since anyone has broken in to your little hacienda?” He leans forward on the dining table, eyes flitting towards the door, “I regret not having been present to assist with the last incident.”

I don’t. Though granted, if Rose had indicated he would come personally– I hardly would have decided that getting disastrously drunk was an option.

“The assistance you sent was appreciated nonetheless.”

At minimum I am confident that Baker’s misplaced amorous attentions will keep what little I revealed that night from Rose. It’s not as if my relationship to a dead father could be used as leverage against me now.

It’s that moment that my _innamorato_ chooses to make his entrance.

 _Maledizione_ , this evening is a convergence. Only years of schooling my features prevent anything from lust from coming through when my eyes fall on Manco, who wastes no further steps, simply leaning against the dining room door frame.

“Huh. Rose on the lapel. Like Corleone, huh,” he offers one further line of explanation, “Angel mentioned.”

“A man of taste in film, then,” Rose smiles wide and closed-lipped, “Most know me simply as Rose.”

“A few know me as Manco,” Manco watches Rose’s hands with appropriate wariness, when he takes the offered handshake. He acts much the same as he does around – anyone, which is it’s own form of impressive.

I’d known since before I could hold a weapon, how to project not just walls, but entire labyrinths to keep a man from learning anything about me. Rose had always been subtle at this art, among a host of other reasons why he gave the orders.

That and he relishes the work.

But Manco seems to give even him some pause. Not especially when he lights a cigarillo, studying the rose on his lapel carefully.

“Cigarillo. Interestingly rough tastes. If I may?” he extends a gloved hand.

“Rather you didn’t,” now that was it’s own boldness, coming from Manco. Perhaps he has the right instincts to suspect a trick, from someone more willing to get his hands dirty than Rose.

Or perhaps he simply has no care for any kind of decorum but his own.

“Tch. Surely Angel Eyes has indicated to you if I wanted you dead, that job would be good as done."

Manco flips out a second cigarillo from his pocket, “So we negotiate then.”

Rose raises an eyebrow at me and –yes, that’s a funny kind of approval. Strange how I rather resent it. He takes the cigarillo, Manco clicking the lighter into flame, offering that too– and Rose takes it with his hand, lights it himself, effortless even through the leather. He hands Manco back the lighter, brushing the cigarillo to his lips.

“Hmm. Awful,” he crushes the cigarillo into an ashtray with distaste, “but never mind, I did offer you a service, Angel Eyes.”

With that, he sweeps out of the room. Once I’m certain he’s left and his attendant has his back turned, I let my lips quirk in apology to Manco. He’s unreadable as ever when he speaks.

“He’s what, your – boss?”

“You’ve never come across the name Rose, before?”

“Can’t remember it being relevant.”

I cannot for the life of me tell if he is lying or being glib. But never mind, I should attend to Rose.

They’ve already got the bag prepared when I join them, Rose smoking his own cigarette on the long holders he favors. His leather shoe tilts the man’s face sideways. He kneels, his keen eyes assessing the details of the murder.

“One of Vlasov’s men.”

“And not one of yours.”

“If it had been, I’d have been glad to see him dead. Anyone going off book to threaten my premier assassin is no asset of mine.”

I incline my head. It’s been years since I had a serious suspicion that Rose had sent anyone to have me killed. And mainly when he had, I suspect they had been tests of sorts, to note my loyalty to him. That I’d more than earned, through humility and reliability alike.

“Dead a few hours prior. You’re most often more…direct,” Rose stands to full height, gestures to his attendant, “The mess, if you would Lorenz.”

I make a split second decision as to how much to reveal– even that half-beat of silence is it’s own revealing, “I had a distraction, in the meantime.”

He’s studying the marks on my neck now. I’m regretting not picking a sweater, “Your tastes will be the death of you, Angel Eyes.”

“I’ll take that advice into consideration,” the chlorinated smell of oxygen bleach hits the air, as Lorenz runs a hard-bristled broom over the dried blood where the body was. Part of me loathes to give this kind of labor to someone who might grow resentful of it – that part of the job I could just as easily do myself. But Rose would have no part of that.

And it is efficient, how quickly the stones are made new again.

“I’ll have his background by tomorrow morning, this armless one of yours. Would you like to see it,” not a question. Rose expects me to take the offer.

“No need to insult me. I know everything I need to.”

“Simply offering further assistance. I’m glad you’ve found someone to keep company with,” oh there’s sincerity there, but none for my sake. He’s glad of potentially easy leverage on me. Or at least easier than I’ve ever had in the past.

“I appreciate it.”

“I’ll have your next assignment by Thursday,” Rose taps the ash off his cigarette, Lorenz shouldering the body.

Damn him.  

“I look forward to it.”

If nothing else, Rose has always been exceptional at picking work that challenges my skill set. I’m couldn’t say I’m not grateful for that much. I scuff my shoe on the clean stone, almost satisfied to see a residual brown mark there. The act not so easily erased.

I find Manco in the north bedroom again, his own shoes off, smoking what I suspect is a new cigarillo. I sit next to him carefully, no sudden movements. Despite his being hunted, I suspect he’s never had an encounter quite this close cut before.

I wish I could say the same, sometimes. _Eram quod es, eris quod sum_. The thought catches me by the throat, studying the shadows under his eyes.

“I got – there’s blood on my socks,” Manco says distantly, staring at the dirt brown flecks. He tears them off all of a sudden, his bare feet catching the dim light.

“I can get those cleaned easily enough. Or if you like, I could get you a new pair,” it’s an oddly conciliatory tone I have. My black gloves, still thrown carelessly under the pooling lamplight, are in much the same state.

“I’ve walked over a mountain in those socks,” he says distantly.

Without quite deciding why, I pull off my clean glove, place my hand on the bare foot that’s perched on his knee. Run my finger along the instep. He shivers, his shoulders hunching.

There’s something implacable, near-biblical about this.

“Achilles tendon,” he mumbles absently, when my hand reaches the back of his heel.

“That’s the name of it.”

“Easy to cut someone down there, right?”

I can’t tell if he means it from experience or no, but I suspect– never mind that.

“Should I offer the same promise you gave me? I’m not going to hurt you.”

He scoffs, but I can hear bravado there, “Knew that already. Don’t worry.”

As with many things, I can’t tell if he believes this. But that isn’t what worries me about this promise. He’ll know in time.

What worries me is that I might believe his.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations:
> 
>  _Aggiungere legna al fuoco_ \- Italian. To add wood to the fire, literally. Colloquially to make a bad situation worse. 
> 
> _innamorato_ \- Italian. Lover. 
> 
> _Eram quod es, eris quod sum_ \- Latin. I was what you were, you will be what I am. 
> 
>  
> 
> With all my thanks to my lovely co-author D, for among many other things, giving me the cue for the socks bit at the end of this chapter.


	4. August 1972: Therefore it Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really taking shape in a way I'm super proud of. If you're interested in the art, I left links in the bottom notes :)

“You’d need to do it fast, see. You understand why.”

“Of course.”

Manco watches Angel Eyes twist the screwdriver carefully, just as he demonstrated a few moments earlier. Angel’s hands are still covered in leather, that much hasn’t changed. The screw squeaks slowly out of the steering wheel, despite the fact that Manco knows it’s loose.

_ You didn’t steal that car, of course. But Manco might have. And besides, he should be able to do it faster. _

“Why don’t you try it without the gloves?”

“Pointless,” it’s a tricky thing, but Manco is starting to recognize the cadence of annoyance in his delicate, distant tone, “It’s no good if I can’t do it without leaving prints.”

“Mm,” Manco suspected, but never asked.

It’s hot, even under the shade of Angel’s garage, the old smell of the road sifting out of the fabric of the seats. Cigarettes. Chocolate bars. Manco would light a cigarillo, but that damn well wouldn’t stop it from being so familiar. The air has a dry heat that could turn skin to leather after a half day’s march in it. Not that they’d had much reason to leave Angel’s sprawling home.

_ Everything you could possibly want is all here, is it? So is it worth the cost of your soul, your life? _

_ Is it worth his? _

God. Manco wishes he knew who he was thinking about.

He watches the knit of Angel’s brow carefully, pushing aside a twin fascination and repulsion with the question: is this how he looks when he plans to kill someone?

Angel has been retreating to the study he favoured in the past week or so. Making cryptic half-remarks about silencers, spending an additional hour in the shooting range. The last job, it had been too early for Manco to see a difference in how he acted. Or maybe it was the blood he’d had to spill so damn close to where he slept.

Well. If you could call what he did sleeping. It was starting to keep Manco up as well, if nothing else to avoid dreaming.

Angel gets the steering wheel casing off, the barest hint of a smile under his mustache. Manco feels his chest twist. He leans back in the seat behind him, putting on an air of disinterest. Watching Angel find the bundle of wires he’d mentioned, study the stripped wire tips after he’s pulled off the cap.

“How long does it take to strip the wires?”

“Not long,” he tilts his neck, enjoying Angel’s intent gaze on him, “I can do the whole thing in under three minutes.”

“Really.”

“Mhm,” that much isn’t a lie. It’s a skill Blondie isn’t proud of, but of course that’s no reason for Manco not to play it up. Angel uses the piece of rubber Manco had to carefully twist the battery and ignition wires together. The starter wire is last, dusty red. This is why he’s always done it alone. Takes a careful hand to work with that level of power, and he’d rather not risk Tuco getting nervous over it.  

That, and – he’s a hell of a lot less likely to attract cops in any kind of car. That’s just the truth of it.

Angel is taking his time with this part, which Manco really can’t argue with. Manco has an absurd desire to remind Angel to be careful, that the shock from those wires could kill him.

_ You’ve already said that. And if he does – _

Manco can’t finish that sentence. He watches Angel’s gloved hands bring the wires closer together by inches, the spark snap between them. The car roars to life.

“Too slow, but – yeah, you got the hang of it,” Manco leans forward and revs the car, “That’s to stop the engine stalling. Fewer times you have to touch the wires, the better.”

Angel watches him carefully, and Manco knows to expect him leaning over before it happens, anticipates the tilt of his head, his smile pressing Manco’s head flush against the back seat. He kisses the same way he did after he’d killed that man, and god if Manco doesn’t wish that would stick in his throat and choke him.

_ Or you. _

He pulls back, brushing Angel’s sharp cheekbones with his bare hands. God, his eyes. Manco can’t tell, in this light, if they look more like the flinty certainty of a bitter antihero tired of picking up the gun, or cool and snakelike, the devil drawing the hero in with so much guileless lust.

He deserves his name. Manco has to give him that much.

_ The way he looks at you, you almost think you deserve yours. _

Manco swallows that thought hard, starts carefully putting the wires back in their casings. He’s kept his hand in, on this beat-up rust bucket that’s crossed so many state lines only to languish here. Angel watches him with an uncharacteristic ease, taking out a pipe from his pocket, asking if it’s safe to light it. Manco feels like he knows, nods without comment anyways.

He’s gotten so used to that particular pique of pipe tobacco, he’d almost forgotten the way cheap cigarettes hung on the fabric of the car seats.

Angel presses his lips on the pipe, surveying the sunny landscape of the grounds, “You can really do it in under three minutes, even with stripping the wires?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me on the Black Charger,” there’s a challenge in that, one that Manco ought to rise to and he knows it. And yet –

“You’re gonna let me strip the wires on a car that nice–”

“It’s no use to me at all, if someone can walk away with it when I have need of it,” he smiles around the pipe, opens the car door, “Show me.”

“Alright.”

_ You’re lucky that the one thing he calls you on is actually something you can do. _

Well, the shooting Manco could do as well. He mentally replays the image of the man’s throat weeping blood onto the terrace stones, while his back is to Angel. He doesn’t think his face changes.

_ What if you have to do that someday? Manco could. Can you? _

Blondie doesn’t know.

The Charger is in the back of the garage, the third of the cars Angel keeps. Manco hasn’t seen him drive it, despite its sharp frame, tough looking exterior.

_ Maybe it’s not as bullet proof as it looks. _

Manco suddenly remembers a comment Angel made off-hand about the last movie they’d seen, about how the car in the film wouldn’t roll the same way as they had shown it. Course, it was all theatre in the movies, how much could you really learn from a story like that?

_ But then. He seems like he could have come from a story like that, doesn’t he? _

Maybe Manco should stop picking mob films, on the rare occasions they went out.

Angel Eyes unlocks the car, then pauses, “How hard is it to break the window glass?”

“Not hard, but it’s not something I’d try either. Stands out. You’re better off going for unrolled windows, or you can try doors,” Manco grips the screwdriver, the wire-strippers in his other hand. Checking on the steering column, still uses the same screws as most of the cheap cars he’s tried this on,  “ ‘Sides, I wouldn’t go for a car this nice, too conspicuous. You want something you’re pretty sure will start, but something people might decide it’s too much work to do much looking for.”

“Noted.”

“Alright. Keep your eye on the clock.”

_ You hunker down, close to the smooth leather seats. Break the torque in less than a second, have the steering column off seconds later. The wires are bright and new, easy to spot red and roil out the bundle into your hand. You drop the others, finding the one you need, a smile creasing into your three-day stubble. _

_ You’re in your element. _

_ You’re about to hit the road. _

Manco strips the wires with practiced ease, twists the steering and ignition together after what he reckons is close to two minutes. Then it’s just the red wire which –

– well, that’s a leap of faith, if he’s picked the right wires at all, but it feels like it’s going to spark right –

The third wire snaps violently against the knotted two, so bright Blondie feels it even through the insulation, almost fumbles his grip on it – but he doesn’t. And the purr of the car underneath him calms his nerves before the surprise hits his face. Manco turns back to Angel, smug as he was on the ice.

“So?”

“Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. That is impressive. You’ve convinced me, I’ll have to make a habit of practicing that as well,” there’s an odd gratitude in it.

It hits Blondie in the chest, he has to work to keep it off his face. Yeah. He knows. He’s given Angel yet another way to catch him out if he decides to run out, hit the road.

_ You couldn’t match him even before this, if he tried to take you out. Not even Manco could. _

And now, Angel is probably more dangerous than ever. And he has fewer options than ever.

_ But then, you knew you were doing that when you suggested teaching him that, didn’t you? _

“I’m going up to Santa Fe, for the next job. Tomorrow, in fact,” Angel says it staring at the dashboard, the pipe having gone out.

“Alright,” Blondie is sharply aware, as he’s been expecting – that he can leave, while Angel is away. Course, he’ll have to dodge the cook, but how hard can that be, really?

“You know where I’ll – “

“If you’d like, you could come with me. Not for the job, of course, but – there’s an exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art that holds interest for me. I’d like to show you. If you’d like to join, no need to feel obliged.”

Angel Eyes looks away like – it’s a stupid thing to be asking. Manco’s breath catches in his throat. It’s so damn different from the way he told him to come to dinner. Like if he said no – Angel would just nod quietly, take whatever platitudes he offered for when he came back.

_ Say no. This is your chance to back out of all of this before there’s nothing but Manco’s story left. _

Blondie’s lips tighten. Manco has a good story.

He revs the still-running engine, looking to the road.

“Yeah, alright. You can show me.”

_ Take your foot off the brake, shift out and drive off into the sunset. Credits roll. _

Manco doesn’t take his foot off the brake.

“Yes, I. I think I’d like that very much,” Angel says it with such a soft disbelief that goddamn if he doesn’t want to lean over and kiss him in the same way. How the hell can he even think that about a man going to Santa Fe for meticulously planned murder, with all the tired air of someone on a business trip?

“Right. I– I’ll go pack a few things,” he pulls the two wires apart, leaves the car too quickly. That’s out of character for Manco, but if he stays any longer he’s not sure whose words are going to come out of his mouth.

Angel doesn’t try to stop him, in any case.

Once he gets to the grey and green bedroom that he keeps his few belongings in, he shuts the door. Reaches in to the bottom of the drawer, where two letters for Blondie lie tucked in his jacket.

Three. He’s been – waiting to read them. He flips the first postcard over, pushing back the twinge of guilt over the date more than three weeks ago. He’s sent only one letter since.

God, what if Tuco needs him? He’s done all this to keep him safe, and all he’s done is gotten himself knotted up in this –

_ Horror story? Crime drama? Twisted thriller romance? _

None of the goddamn endings make any sense. Or the ones that do he doesn’t want to think about. He searches his pockets for a cigarillo, lights it before finally letting his eyes fall on the letter.

_ Hey Blondie! _

_ Got out of New Orleans finally. It hasn’t changed a bit, you know, there’s always someone you can find to bed with, but then they’re out the next day because they’re just tourists, or there’s no stopping them finding someone else to warm their bed with. Not that I mind, but working dishwashing there is tough, the cooks always yelling in French. So it’s pretty, but. Too busy. _

_ I’m writing this from a roadside place that let me have a burger, don’t think they can afford to hang on to me, but at least they’re not throwing me out. Going to try my luck in Baton Rouge, if I can get the car to start. _

_ Dios va contigo, _

_ Tuco _

Same way he always signs his letters, and when they’re to his brother he signs the cross carefully over them. Blondie wonders if he did the same over this one.

Fuck, he didn’t want to picture that. Not here.

Still, his shoulders both relax and hunch a little more. Tuco is doing…better than he’d worried about, after more than three months. It isn’t the longest they’ve ever spent apart but it’s getting close to it.

_ Does he even need you? Will it matter to him if Blondie stops writing? _

Manco flips over the next postcard, taking a hard drag from the cigarillo.

_ Dear Blondie, _

_ Got a regular place finally so hopefully Pablo will pass on your next letters. I’ve got a nice job at a hotel restaurant and I’m packed in to stay awhile. Who knew there were Italians in Louisiana, not me. But they’re pretty friendly, and the pizza is nice and thin.  _

_ Hasn’t really been anyone I’m seeing since New Orleans, and madre di dio thank god for that. The people there, they tire me out, you know? Well, you know from my last letter. _

_ Hope you got to see some good movies! _

_ Dios va contigo, _

_ Tuco _

There’s a bit of a plaintive air to that one, and enough specifics in the location that Blondie figures he was fishing for them to meet up again.

_ Would have thought that would make you feel better. But then. You just agreed to go with Angel, didn’t you? _

One more postcard left.

_ Hey Blondie! _

_ Got your last letter! New Mexico looks neat, how you been keeping? _

_ Know how I said there wasn’t anyone well– this waitress started making eyes at me, cute redhead. Kind of hoping for a blonde these days but what can you do. Besides, she’s fun enough to want to borrow the hotel rooms before the maids get to cleaning them, so I’m all set here. _

_ Dios va contigo, _

_ Tuco _

Reading that hits him in the chest. Blondie leans his head back against the dresser, closing his eyes. Not even able to summon the energy to put the cigarillo to his lips.

_ What a goddamn mess. _

_ Okay, so he misses you. So what? You’re just going to up and leave Manco forever? _

_ You’re going to leave Angel? _

By far the worst of it was that he somehow could see it. The way Angel would take him vanishing. The part of him that’s still afraid of those black gloves gripping the knife flashes chase scenes, dramatic showdowns, and horror tableaux through his imagination. But the story that sticks is none of those.

No, the more he stays, the more he can see the flicker of the way the scene will play out for Angel. Quiet, no resistance, no violence. As is he’d expected this, god knows he expected worse for so long before opening himself up in even the tiny ways Manco is starting to see.

Angel Eyes seems used to people leaving. Maybe for good reason. But damnit, Manco doesn’t want to do that to him.

_ Truth is, they’ll both survive without you. Maybe be better off, after a time. _

_ But it would hurt them. _

Manco flinches, nearly dropping the burned-down cigarillo. He stubs it out on the counter, starts composing a brief letter of his own. No details. No goodbyes.

_ Just something to let him know I’m still around and I– _

Blondie desperately wants to end that thought with  _ I’ll see him soon. _

The best he can manage is  _ I’ll see him again. _

Manco doesn’t see Angel, though for most of the day. And he’s not at the table for dinner that evening, nor has Susan set out a plate in his usual chair. She has, however, brought one for herself this evening.

“He’ll eat late,” she offers by way of explanation, “Always does on the night before. And he’ll cook, once he’s sure it’s all in order.”

“You still– stuck around?” Manco doesn’t mean to be rude, but he is wondering why. Normally she goes home early, when Angel intends to cook.

“Sometimes he needs me,” she says simply. No more elaborating on it than that. She sits down, takes a careful bite of the paella. They eat in silence for a few minutes.

“So you’re going with him on the job,” Susan sets down her fork, taking a sip of water.

“Not on the job–”

She laughs a little bit, “No, of course not. Then I’d be genuinely worried about him. I think he’d consider that dangerous.”

“For him, or for me?”

“Both,” she says it with a private, sardonic smile. Manco has often wondered to what degree she was involved in Angel’s work. More often than not these days.

_ If expects people trying to kill him once a week, who the hell does he trust to make his food? _

That thought makes him cough on a savory bite of shrimp. She raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah – can understand that,” he manages, “He– it wasn’t about that. Said something about art.”

“That’s another first. He usually goes to those alone, too,” she doesn’t let up on staring at him – and he can’t stop the shock from flitting across his face, before she sees. She takes another bite of the paella, chewing carefully. He feels the terrifying need to say something both reassuring and true.

_ You haven’t got many of those for Manco, do you? Now how long are you going to really keep this up? _

“I haven’t – been to that many galleries. Dunno that I’ll be good at it,” that’s at least true about him, though Manco would probably have given less of a shit–

“What matters is that he wanted you to go with him,” she tilted her head, looking at him seriously, “I’m glad of it, for certain. And grateful. But I hope you know what this means – to him.”

“Think I do, yeah,” that’s got enough of Manco for it to sound right to him. And it’s true.

It isn’t until he’s been half-dozing in the darkened shelter of the north bedroom that Angel finally makes an appearance. Slips off the leather gloves and slides a chilly hand next to his hipbone.

If that had been Tuco, he’d have rolled over with a grunt of displeasure, but let Tuco settle with his head pillowed on his shoulder. Blondie doesn’t move. He just breathes in the clean smell of Angel’s skin, the slight dampness of his freshly washed skin nudging the back of Blondie’s neck as he settles in for sleep.

The thought he’d pushed aside at dinner flits back to mind,  _ how long are you going to keep this up– _

_ – as long as he stays alive – _

Blondie turns over sharply in bed, tucking his head into Angel’s shoulder and gripping his hand with uncharacteristic clumsiness. That isn’t like Manco, but  _ shit _ –

“Something the matter?” Angel squeezes his hand gently.

“Do you – are you going to do it tomorrow?” he manages to make it sound tough and careless, but he can’t stop himself asking it either. Angel’s brow furrows, but not – in an unpleasant way.

“No, no of course not. The day after,” he says it light, reassuring, “I’ve worked out all the details, and you won’t be anywhere–”

“Not worried about me.”

“I’ve worked out the details, then,” he rolls over slightly, nudging Blondie onto his back but not sacrificing an inch of closeness, “I am – you can be confident I don’t say that lightly. As much as I’m not accustomed to having anyone express worry of any kind about me.”

“Right, um,” his brain spins on ideas, plausible stories, hide this behind something, “The last time I went out, I –”

“Shh,” Angel mumbles, nudging himself further into Blondie’s grip. God, his face is so many bones– not like –

“Tell me tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I – alright,” Blondie can’t find the thread of Manco’s story. It’s for the better, then.

When the light hits his eyes come the morning he feels mostly himself again. Too much so, getting behind the wheel, the letter tucked in his pants pocket – it’s like he’s going to start the car and drive them both to Baton Rouge right now, to hell with Angel’s so-called work.

_ Come on. You know he couldn’t take that. _

Fuckit, he still doesn’t know who he’s thinking about. But when Angel opens the door to the driver’s side of the Charger, as Blondie damn well should have expected– well, he can’t wait another day to send this. Won’t.

“Listen. Before we hit the road – I need to mail a letter.”

He leans on the hot black of the car’s surface, hoping it looks as casual as he believes it does. Angel’s faltering expression catching him by the throat.

_ Not like you can take that back. _

His tongue is stuck on the roof of his mouth, no story forming easily there– but then Angel surprises him.

“I confess – Susan told me you’d been picking them up at a box in town. As a precaution, of course – but I haven’t read them, I promise you that,” Angel says it with enough regret that Manco has to believe him, nods bracingly back.

“Yeah, they’re just – ”

“I trust you, of course – you don’t need to explain them to me,” Angel cuts him off smoothly. Which is just as well. Manco was about to come out with ‘to my partner’, and the idea of implying Tuco somehow helped him pull off hit jobs,  _ Christ _ .

_ You don’t want him involved, do you? _

He’d decided that as soon as he’d seen the blood on Angel’s hands. But then, how would Tuco take it if he just stopped sending the letters? Would he settle in Baton Rouge with that waitress, get a house and kids like he’d once hinted Blondie would never give him?

_ You said you loved him, that day. _

Blondie watches Angel’s profile, sharp against the red desert skyline that picks up speed beside them. Angel smiles, just out of the corner of his mouth. Eyes still focused on the road.

The story’s failing him. He knows that. He lights a cigarillo, rolls down the window to smell the heated asphalt and get a breeze going.

But hell if it doesn’t all look damn good while it’s falling apart.

_ That’s something Manco would think. _

_ Isn’t it? _

* * *

 

The Lute Player, Theodore Rombouts.

A detail-oriented depiction of life from an admiring Caravaggisti. A man with severe brown eyes and a quizzical expression, caught in the middle of tuning his instrument. The colors are lush, yet subdued, a reasonable example of Baroque style.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting art to be this funny, from the poster,” Manco tilts his head, referring to the choice of Gentileschi’s  _ Judith Beheading Holofernes _ , “Looks a lot like he didn’t want to be caught with the instrument.”

And here I was thinking his consternation was similar to that of my late target, frowning out the opened kitchen window just before the sniper rifle’s shot caught him between the eyes.

I don’t bring that up to Manco, of course. It’s strange to me that I spent most of my time in preparation for the job trying to fend off distracting thoughts of my  _ innamorato _ . And now that it’s behind me, I can’t seem to shake off the shadow of the deed.

It was as quiet as calculated. It took the police most of the day to report the murder.  By then, we’d already departed for the adobe walls of the New Mexico Museum of Art. The announcement crackled on the radio. Manco said nothing, but from the way he reached for the cigarillo– he knew.

“It’s very slice of life,” I say with a lightness I hardly need to force, “You’re right though, it is funny. Refreshing.”

Cardsharps and troubadours line the walls of this first room. Nothing sublime in subject, but it’s still nice to linger among the everyday. Manco’s breath catches, seeing a glimpse of  _ The Entombment _ in the next room, Christ’s lifeless hand draped over the stone floor. He glances back to me, as if for permission, then covers it by jerking his head and wandering indifferent through the archway.

I have to smirk. The rare moments where his facade drops are those I’ve come to treasure. Rather like the implicit flicker in the steady candle of the LaTour painting I’m studying.  _ Dulcior illa sapit caro, quae magis ossibus haeret. _

I suppose my mind is rather inclined to the morbid, at the moment. It surprises me that I find that mildly discomfiting.

I join him a few minutes later, rapt in front of  _ The Calling of St Matthew _ . Crisp light from the window cutting through in the tenebristic style popularized by Caravaggio.

“I’ll admit this has always been one of my favourites. The vividness of that gesture. Sticks in your mind.”

“I was in training to be a priest once,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes off of Matthew. It catches me out, as those careless confessions of his have wont to do. I’ve since learned not to press them. It tends to lead to cigarillos and careless nothings.

Perhaps then, some further background.

“Caravaggio was himself Catholic– parts of the Baroque art movement could be framed as a struggle between Catholic and Protestant. Vivid and passionate depictions of Biblical scenes from the Catholics. The Protestants – many of them saw this form of art as itself idolatry. But they had their own way of paying homage to their God. The vanitas paintings, for instance. I’m actually rather fond of those.”

“You believe in God, Angel Eyes?”

“Now what kind of person would I be if I did?

“.. someone like me.”

Now that surprises me, for someone in our profession. But then he’d hardly be the first. I reach for some way to smooth over what may well be a misstep.

“ _ Facilis descensus Averni _ . It means, the descent to hell is easier than it looks,” I tilt my head carefully at the image, “But don’t think I’m holding that against you. It takes all kinds of madness to do the work we do.”

“Yeah.”

He stays mostly quiet as we wander through the room full of religious depictions. Something in the indulgent piety of word made – not flesh, but very nearly, hangs on his cheeks. But it’s as I expected, he’s a good companion, for a practice such as this. One which begets moments of simple, observant contemplation.

We pass through the final room on the Italian Baroque. It’s pleasant– more so than I bargained. I’m even considering whether we should take a trip someday – it’s not as if I haven’t taken work in Europe before. Never particularly enjoyed it then, but perhaps with company, someone’s eyes at my back–

I tear my gaze away from Medusa’s shriek and bloody neck, following Manco along the last few paintings.

A frown plays on his lips when we reach the gory Gentileschi next to the primly murderous Judith that Caravaggio envisioned. Of course, Caravaggio had no understanding of the rage and violence women are equally capable of.

I put a finger to my lips, counting myself lucky that I was taught so thoroughly not to make such a dire miscalculation. Thanking my mentor yet again.

Manco glaces to me as if a question lies on his lips, but says nothing.

“Shall I show you a vanitas? Memory serves there’s one in the permanent exhibition.”

He nods gently, following in my footfalls now. Yes, this I dearly suspect I could get used to.  _ Tempus fugit, amor manet _ , is that how the proverb goes?

At least even now it seems no less naive to me than it did four months prior. But this is dangerous territory. With a few months more, who knows what risks I might take on, what carelessness may accidentally set him in the sights of a Remington 700 much the same as my own.

_ Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis _ . I always liked that one, and he’s got the teeth to already call himself a wolf. Perhaps one lacking in some bite, but there’s something I trust in that implicitly.

_ Maledizione _ , now that sounds like my patron.

We pass down the tiled steps to the painting I’ve spent a fair amount of time on my other visit studying, “Willem Claesz Heda. Simply titled  _ Still Life _ .”

His brow furrows in a way I didn’t quite expect, looking at the beautifully rendered glass, the yellow fruit. The knives driven in to piles of acorns and oysters, all life is but vanity. A sentiment I agree with on some days – though the moralizing implication that the vanities are but distractions from the next life I find bitter and distasteful as Heda’s rotting lemon peel.

He surprises me, walking away without saying a word. But perhaps that’s its own message. Or perhaps he felt the image spoke all it needed to.

I find him studying a piece by Luce,  _ Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue _ . Muted brown impressionism, quite a contrast from the featured exhibition. I join him, glancing once over my shoulder.

“This one. Return of the Prodigal Son. I’ve always found hard to look at. The idea of offering one’s neck in that particular way – it unsettles me, I suppose.”

“And to a father,” he says, casting a sidelong glance at me.

“I suppose, yes,” I’d told him that story so early, cloaked in fable, hardly expecting it to amount to much. And yet, even then – he’s the first of my metier that I’d trust as company in so pedestrian, yet vulnerable an activity as going to see a film.

How quickly things got out of my hands.

“Shall we retire to dinner?” I offer no further thoughts on the Luce. As he was with the Heda, perhaps, the image has struck me in ways I hadn’t expected.

“Yeah.”

He takes a quiet, rueful pleasure in smoking over dinner. I choose someplace suitably New Mexican, soft tortillas and  _ sopapillas _ . As much as eating in public settings can be unsettling, it remains important to have as many traceable alibis as possible, after a job. But even this normally burdensome practice is – easier, in his company.

I consider this information carefully, when we settle back in to the hotel room on the outskirts of town. Is this what might be named as love? I suppose it would have to be – but part of me suspects that isn’t what gives me comfort.

My gloves catch on the chain turning the bedside light on, with Manco settling into the chair in the corner, finishing a cigarillo. I draw the curtains shut, still thinking over that question in so many words, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish – yet what sticks is an image. Impressionistic browns. Luce.

“Will you – stay where you are,” I don’t end it as a question, but he still nods in deference. Slowly, I kneel at his feet, chest almost touching his knees. My knife-sharp senses are prickling, then practically screaming as I hold my breath, lower my cheek to his thigh.

I breathe out. There’s nothing close by I could snatch to do any kind of damage. Nothing to defend me. I hear him swallow, shift slightly.

“I’m going to – can I put my hand–”

I half-nod distantly, not fully knowing what he’s asking until his fingers are nestled in my hair. That’s calming, in much the same way his presence was over dinner. Love, yes – but – it means a great deal more, to have someone who I against all odds have come to trust rather intimately.

He slowly moves his hand to where my arm is draped over the chair. A strange thing, that I allowed myself such utter vulnerability in this anonymous hotel room. No way to revisit this scene but for the unreliable particulars of memory. I keep my eyes open, sifting through the exact sensation of his calluses carding through my hair. My mind wanders to the title of the Luce, and the story it entails–

I sit up too quickly– quickly enough that it would have been dangerous, had our positions been reversed. But he just glances downwards, eyes pooled with such concern I almost regret what I know I have to say.

“Don’t mistake this as some kind of plea for forgiveness.”

He just places one hand on my chin, just as enigmatic and sly as when I met him.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations:
> 
>  _Dulcior illa sapit caro, quae magis ossibus haeret._ \- The sweetest flesh is near the bones. Latin. 
> 
> _Facilis descensus Averni_ \- The descent to hell is easy. Those who know my other work for Blondeyes might recognize this :) . Latin. 
> 
> _Tempus fugit, amor manet,_ \- Time flies, love stays. Latin. 
> 
> _Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis_ \- Literally, "Who keeps company with wolves, will learn to howl". Figuratively meaning one becomes like the company one keeps. Latin. 
> 
> It's all Latin because -- well Angel is happy, in a sort of self-fullfilment way. I could type a lot of meta on his different use of language, but instead I'll just drop the picture links on you:
> 
>  
> 
> [Judith Slaying Holofernes (Gentileschi)](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJudith_Slaying_Holofernes_%28Artemisia_Gentileschi%2C_Naples%29&t=YzZmMzU1ZmIyNDVlMWMxYmRjNWQ5OWU3MDc5NTI3ZTdiMWVlNDU1MCxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1), [The Entombment of Christ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Entombment_of_Christ_%28Caravaggio%29&t=YTFhZTliNzFlNWNkZWY5NWU0MWJhNDc5N2I2M2I5NjZlNWIyNjA2MSxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1), [The Calling of St Matthew,](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Calling_of_St_Matthew_%28Caravaggio%29&t=ZWJiYmY1YjZiY2UzOTU3OWNjN2EyN2UwMTljZjA5YWEyZGQ0ZDk2NSxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1)  [Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJudith_Beheading_Holofernes_%28Caravaggio%29&t=ZGQyN2M1NTkwZDkxNTA4NWVhNmY1ZTk1YjUxYTgzMGZmOTRjYWIxMSxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1), [Still Life](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic1.squarespace.com%2Fstatic%2F546971e2e4b0f91811f02a4c%2Ft%2F58d18c333e00be5c35355a32%2F1426993299941%2F%3Fformat%3D1000w&t=M2Y5OGE0MTYzY2MyYzc0ZTJiZmE1ZTRiZjhhODUyYmUyZmVmNjVmNyxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1), 
> 
> [Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paintingmania.com%2Fle-retour-de-l-enfant-prodigue-return-prodigal-son-216_32226.html&t=NjVjYzcyOTA2NmU1MjU1NzI2ODVkYzA1MTkwYzNmNWI4MzlkM2Y2NyxOY3hXZVBicA%3D%3D&b=t%3AbhBL2q0oLVUUgkc6bbDNig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fsybilius.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F184978837821%2Fluce-and-heda&m=1). 
> 
> Also, some [art of my own](https://sybilius.tumblr.com/post/184016185526/s-u-p-p-l-i-c-a-t-i-o-n-p-o-s-e-probably-from), about the last scene :)
> 
> Comments ever so welcome <3 <3


	5. September 1972: Solaris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that the "Solaris" that came out in Sept 1972 was a Soviet predecssor to the 2002 film starring George Clooney.

The season starts to flame up in the edges of the leaves before Manco is fully aware of it.

He notices it driving back from his mailbox in town, the landscape redder even than it usually is, the few trees he passes. It’s getting on mid September. He reaches for the postcard as soon as he gets the car stopped, not letting himself stew over it anymore. He’s stopped hoping, for Tuco’s notes to have a snatch of the plaintive, some hint that why he started this wasn’t all in his head.

It’s starting to fade in the distance.

_Besides, it’s a fair trade for you, isn’t it? A few nightmares, looking over your shoulder, for a role that finally makes the cut?_

The word  _cut_ flickers back from movie set to bloodstained knife before he can stop it. Manco takes a drag from his cigarillo. Tuco would have counted the house, the food, the safety, all of the soft greed among the blessings.

Tuco wouldn’t have taken the deal at all.

But then, he doesn’t know Angel Eyes. Not the way Manco does, at the end of the day. Manco stops staring blankly at the slightly blurry monument photograph, flips the postcard over to read it at last. There’s a photograph stapled to it, Tuco in front of a beautiful white cathedral, big smile on his face.

_Blondie,_

Almost doesn’t sound like his name anymore.

_Things are good with Katie, met the family last week. All of them want me to have ten different accents, and her baby cousin stuck to me like glue. She’s probably about four? Kids, when they like ya, you know it. Like in Kansas City, with that landlady’s son who took a shine to you._

He barely remembers that. He’s not all that suited to kids.

_Well, lucky Katie seems like she wants her family to shut up about her having them. They like me okay though. So that’s good._

_She took this picture of me at the St Joseph Cathedral I thought you might like it._

_Dios va contigo,_

_Tuco_

Maybe Tuco found what he was really after all along. He’d hinted at it. Something was missing though, something bothering Blondie.

_You were just wrong. He doesn’t need you – and what’s more, you don’t need him, so what does it matter?_

Blondie wonders fleetingly, bitterly, why he’d wanted so badly to send the postcard he’d just dropped off. He lights a cigarillo, slams the car door shut before heading inside. Maybe it was all the nightmares he didn’t write about in the postcard.

It’s not as if Manco can talk about them to Angel Eyes.

Of course, there’s been plenty to keep him busy. Keeping his quickdraw in seems more necessary than ever, and Angel Eyes has taken on the task of knowing the vulnerabilities of cars to theft inside out. When the evenings aren’t quite as cool, they pore over the skeleton of the black Charger, him guessing at pieces of the engine while Angel’s mustache twitches and he flips through manuals, textbooks.

They don’t leave the house quite as often as Manco would like, but then, Angel’s habit of looking over his shoulder is starting to rub off on him.

_You’re adapting, aren’t you Manco? The road isn’t your story anymore._

He’s got something of story now, if asked about his past.

_Which you should have come up with long before now._

This isn’t a throwaway hand at a poker table he’ll never come back to if he knows what’s good for him. The stakes have never been higher. But Angel hasn’t asked yet, though they’ve flirted around the topic. Maybe won’t ever. He stays clear of direct questions about the past. Possibly because he doesn’t want to dwell on the same.

He drops his keys on the coffee table in the library, Angel regarding him gently over his pipe and book.

“Did you have anything you needed to do, tomorrow morning?”

About the present, however, he’s become a little more open. Manco taps the ash off his cigarillo, reaching for the novel he was reading.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” he leaves _On the Road_ at his lap, sensing Angel has something to say.

“I– visit my mentor’s grave, this time of year. I will be going tomorrow. It’s a poor substitute for anything I could show you about her, but– it’s as much as I allow myself. She wouldn’t approve, of dwelling on her after death,” he breaks off, that endearing way he has of losing all his eloquence sometimes. Like when they’d gone to New Mexico, the halting way he lets Manco into his life.

_You’re too used to that, now. Not careful enough. You let something slip..._

“Course I’ll go with you,” he tilts his head up, then settles into reading before he succumbs the urge to get up and kiss Angel. Manco’s got an affectation.

And besides, Angel isn’t his partner– he’s –

_You’re his, more like. Not his partner. You’re his._

Manco swallows, unsure if he really likes the thought or not. Angel lets him move freely of course, has never stopped him or even tried to read his letters. And it’s not as if Manco ever asked for anything. Theirs is a careful net, Manco barely realized he was weaving, and now they’re both just as likely to strangle trying to cut loose.

He steals a glance back to Angel, who seems to sense the movement, meets his gaze. Smiles in that quiet way he does sometimes, before turning back to a novel with a leopard on the cover. Italian, maybe Latin.

The silent moments, they’re easier when he’s here. They’re getting easier all the time.

_There’s still so little he knows about you, isn’t there?_

Manco’s stomach lurches at the thought. It’s been skipping over the frames of his mind every so often. He pushes back the memory from a few nights before, when he’d seen oranges in the kitchen (when did he start being let into the kitchen, he barely remembers)–

Point is, Manco knows Angel trusts him. And that – god above, it scares him. He’d admitted to too much, given a halting confession to Susan of all people. Hoping she’d say something to Angel, something to soften the blow when all the hell broke loose. Foreshadow it. To the cook, what the hell kind of scene was that?

“Something interesting in Kerouac?” Angel has noticed him staring off into space.

“Just. Thinking about the last time I was on the road,” he turns back to the page, let his eyes travel over them.

Manco can tell she hasn’t said a word. Angel is too attentive not to address it, too direct to simply let things lie.

_So I’ll give him the story. When I have to._

He doesn’t manage it over dinner, though. Nor the evening, nor following a thorough and intricate lovemaking with a rope binding Manco had to think anyone would find beautiful. But it’s left his silver tongue heavy and heady, and before he knows, the morning has come again.

He pulls himself upwards in the empty bed, his eyes going towards the figure in the room with unprecedented speed. Maybe Angel is rubbing off on him. Maybe he’ll need that, for his survival odds.

He’s getting too damn used to that thought, too.

It’s Angel who is tense, dressed in a black dress shirt Manco has seen him wear before. Right. They're going to visit a grave, of all places.

“M'sorry I – don’t have anything fitting a funeral,” he rubs the sleep out of his eyes, wondering when the hell he started sleeping this far past Angel’s waking. Probably since he arrived. Angel hardly slept through the night.

“Oh. I hadn’t – she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to dress differently. The funeral like attire wasn’t intentional, on my part,” he shook his head, “Come as you are.  _Es el tono que hace la música._ ”

Manco’s heart twists, putting together tone and music in the phrase. He has a lingering sense Tuco explained it to him, once. He’s not about to ask about it now.

“Alright.”

Manco still ends up rummaging around for the clean tan shirt he sometimes wears to church, the rare times they go. Been such a long time since he’s put on anything of Joseph’s. Angel raises an eyebrow, since he’s worn it seldom, but doesn’t comment.

The graveyard is a few miles out of town even from the hacienda, near hills that are gentle, rather than the harsh flatlands and mesas of the New Mexico landscape. When they park the car, there are only a few graves visible. But as they walk step in step closer, the valley between the rolling hills reveals itself, marked with hundreds of graves all encircled.

A shiver goes through Manco, the rhythm of the passing headstones almost reminding him of another cemetery. One where he’d spent the night with what could have been an angel in his arms, and he didn’t look a damn thing like the man he’s with now–

“Here,” Angel Eyes says quietly, turning down one of the circular rows. Manco sees a gorgeously carved cross a few yards from them, nearly a sepulchre– but it’s the near-formless stone next to it that Angel stops at, letting out a gentle breath.

The grave is unmarked.

“ _Feliz cumpleaños_ ,” Angel says quietly, and Manco is surprised that he understands it. Very nearly hears it in Tuco’s voice, brash and accented.

“It’s her birthday?”

“Of a sort. She had– a complicated history, from what I pieced together, much more so than mine,” Angel studies the grave with a sadness smoothed by what Manco knows to be nearly a decade of her absence. A hollow pain sticks in his chest, remembering his Uncle’s death that he heard of two months after from Pablo.

Heard, and felt less than nothing.

“But she knew my birthday, it turned up after ten months under her protection and teachings. She – celebrated it. Brought a cake from a store she trusted, candles for the table. Birthdays with my father and extended family, I’d never liked them. I didn’t think I liked them much with her, either, but I demanded to know her birthday just the same. She told me she had no idea when it was. I had no reason to disbelieve her, so there it was.”

The way Angel speaks, about this woman he calls mentor. It’s not quite the same kind of carefulness when Tuco talks around his family, but of course– Tuco tries not to hold that over him. Not that he’d given his partner much of an idea what his family was like – point is, neither of them have spoken this long or this fondly about – anyone really.

“The following day, I made her a cake of our own, and declared that day to be her birthday, that if we were to partake in that celebration for mine, we’d have to for hers as well. I was such a precocious child, I can’t imagine how she put up with me. But that made her smile. Then I let her cut the cake – you remember, I mentioned those blue capsules she trained me with.”

Manco remembers, hearing about that a few weeks ago with such a morbid horror. The things Angel has done, to become what he is. The careful way this woman had her hand in shaping that.

“The cake was blue, on the inside– and her face, shifted in a way I didn’t understand then. I thought she’d like it, she’d be proud even. She said very quietly, ‘Angel Eyes. You must be very careful what you give to people as kindness.’,” he stops short, laughs like water, “She was full of strange truisms like that, those I understood as I grew older. But she still – was grateful for it all the same, this gift from a child so weighted with the taste of violence. We celebrated the same every year.”

Manco studies the bright yellow flowers sprouting on her grave.

"What was her name?” Manco asks, before he thinks better of it, “That is, if that’s not–”

“Alma. Rather. That was the name she gave me.  _Melium est nomen bonum quam divitae multae_. I didn’t go looking for any others. She– only ever called me Angel Eyes, though she must have known my name. Always was thorough at her research.”

Manco can’t help turning to him then, a question in his eyes. He won’t say it, but somehow, Angel already understands.

“Casimiro. Casimiro Sebastian Romano,” Angel Eyes’ lips turn down as he says it, “Only a few who know me professionally are aware of that. All of them know I don’t answer to that name.”

Manco suddenly wishes he hadn’t asked, but by the same token, is glad to know that, about Angel. He nods slowly, realizing he can make the same offer.  

“Mine was Joseph. That man died a long time ago, too.”

Angel nods, a soft sigh escaping his lips as he studies the grave, “Over time, I wonder if she could have trusted you. She was very insular – paranoid. You could understand why. In her last year I tried to stop her from wrapping herself further into that, suffocating herself. It did little good.”

Manco wants to reach for a cigarillo, the overwhelming weight of Angel’s story suddenly settling on his shoulders. It was like a movie, all the sweeping cinematics of this huge graveyard, their careful exchange, the ghost of a woman that was herself a ghost of a mother when she lived. 

And yet, all he could think about were the moments he’d seen Angel frown over something he was cooking, drift off with wary carefulness in the afternoons at the library –

The fact that this man was born just the same, not scripted nor constructed through layers of carefully settled lies and a well-calculated tilt to the head. He came by all of that honestly.

_More than you can say._

Manco reaches for something to say, which comes out banal and stupid, “Was it your birthday yesterday, then? Sorry I missed it.”

Angel laughs, neither bitter nor sincere, “I’ve never liked celebrating it. Not even when Alma was alive.”

“Yeah,” Manco knows the feeling, sometimes. When every year marks another nothing.

“Thirty-two years. You know, it feels terribly strange to say this– but I feel perhaps this year will be different than those past. It’s been a long time since I’ve expected that.”

Blondie can’t stop himself then, rushing forward to kiss Angel clumsily, so unlike all of Manco’s lethally curated restraint. It surprises Angel too, takes both of them a moment to get their bearings, Angel’s mustache brushing against his tongue. Angel pulls away with a bemused smile on his lips. He can’t think of what to say.

"Mine is June 8th. I– missed celebrating it this year,” Manco mumbles. That was usually Tuco’s doing, “Thirty-one didn’t feel that meaningful.”

“The numbers rarely do. Alma told me that, once, when I expressed much the same.”

“Yeah,” he swallows, still standing too close to Angel, hands on his shoulders by a grave of all things. He wants to say thanks. For showing me this. It seems too little.

But he makes a promise to himself then, nonetheless.

_I’m not leaving him. Not now, not ever._

It’s Blondie, not Manco, who knows even then it’s only a matter of time before he breaks it.

* * *

 

My  _innamorato_ is quiet, on the drive returning to the hacienda. It does not escape me to name that as a strange thing to think, given his characteristic terseness. Something, perhaps, about the slow way he puts the cigarillo to his mouth betrays deep thinking.  _Effectus sequitir causam_.

I let my eyes wander back to the road, thinking of birthdays shared, foolish gestures beaten into the rhythm of living. Yet so willing, eager, I am to march to that cacophony once more. 

As was with Alma, the company makes a difference. I have to suppose. 

“I asked Bill Carson to come by, give advice on which room would be most preferable for a projector.”

He blinks, shakes his head, “What, so we don’t have to go to the theater?" 

"Yes and no. I’d find it less distracting, to view within the confines of the home – but more so, with copies of the reels and a proper screen, the films could be more easily revisited. Rather like a second library, of a different medium.”

“Wow. You like them that much, huh?" 

I take the turn on to the hacienda road slowly, unsure how to interpret his tone.

“It would be nice to make a study of them,” is what I decide on. I would have thought he’d been pleased, to have something of his hobby a little closer by. But he simply nods once, returns to his brooding. There’s something different on his mind.  

In the driveway, he catches my hand when I switch off the gas, his fingertips teasing at the exposure of my wrist. His glance is serious though, whatever thought he has cresting in the stormy ocean of his eyes. I swallow my sense of peace, preparing for what’s at hand. 

"Can I – tell you something, too?" 

"Of course.  _Eodem cubito, eadem trutina, pari libra_. You need not have secrets you do not wish to keep." 

"Let’s go to the bedroom." 

“If that suits you.” 

I follow in his footsteps quietly, having never quite seen this degree of unsteadiness in him. Corpses cut fresh in front of him, nightmarish tales of murderous children he took with nothing but carefully measured indifference. I’ve at most seen flashes of what might resemble vulnerability from him. Small and innocuous as dried bloodstains on a pair of socks. 

He rummages around in the chest of drawers he’s claimed as his, coming up with a stack of postcards. I’d lost count after eight of them. Sits down heavily next to them, the letters still face down. The topmost card has a view of a swamplike lake, labelled Louisiana.

“Listen these– postcards. They’re from someone important to me.”

“I’d expected so. Someone like family?” I venture, wondering if this might be the result of my reminiscences. 

“Yes– no, no, not –” Manco falters, “He’s my ex-partner.”

“Ah, hm,” I say quietly, something tensing at the core of me, is this a response his discomfort? 

“I tend to find the work to be best done alone, but if you have someone you can trust–” I catch sight of his stricken expression, “Or did you not mean partner in the business sense?”

“That too, I just– never for the hit jobs, god I’m not explaining him well at all,” the misery suddenly falls across his face, the lines mapping out a stark landscape I’ve never seen before. That I feel I must respond to. I move closer to him on the bed, wait for him to continue speaking. He lights a cigarillo, even just after the last. I haven’t seen him go through them at this speed since Rose came to call. 

“I’ve known him since we were kids. We were on the run together, a few years, then I lost track of him. He– was in for hustling, not that he was any good at it. I was on the lookout for dirtier work,” Manco grimaces, sucking the cigarillo in that transfixing way of his, “So we were always – off-and-on. Wanted different things. I tried to – keep him out of trouble, you know? The hustle we ran, it never made enough to break even. Not in any way that mattered.”

His fingers are gripping his thigh too tightly, I notice abstractly, his whole body at odds with his surroundings. I’ve some notion that this distance, this observation of him is putting me at a distance to what I should be paying attention to–

“Well. You’ll never need to worry about that, should that cross your mind,” I say, for lack of anything better. 

“That’s not– I never needed much, it was him that did. I thought you’d like him, at one point.”

“Why are you telling me this?” it comes out cold, my eyes flickering across the room, falling on a painting. Not looking at him. 

“I– he’s the only person I could think, who was important to me the way Alma was to you–”

I nearly flinch when he says her name. He drops his gaze to the floor.

“It doesn’t matter, any of it. Not to me. He’s settled down with someone, some lady like he always wanted to. Probably his next letter he’ll tell me they’re getting married, and you know I just – can’t bring myself to give a damn, really,” he breaks off. I tighten the strap on my gloves, wanting to reach for him, and yet also – wanting no part of that. 

I know he’s lying through his teeth about the indifference, not even well. 

“If you want, you can read the postcards.” 

"No, no I have – no desire to read a correspondence between yourself and a lover." 

“It’s not really anything, we forward the letters to his brother, so he never writes–”

“You should still keep them private,” I say sharply.  _Dio sa_ , if I ever wrote to him I’d want him to do the same. 

But I don’t want to write, I realize belatedly. Studying the painting of torrential waves by the seaside, a lonely shack by the shore in the rain. I want him to stay here, keep company, continue to share confidences – 

I love him, I think helplessly, but I’ve had that thought before, not like this. It’s not this moment that’s going to bring those words to my lips. 

I want to make so many promises, so many offers to him, and yet those would all be borne from the chasmous trench of emptiness in my chest.  _In nullum avarus bonus est, in se pessimus_. Love should come freely given – should he stay – 

I would have it be for myself alone, rather than any offer I can make to him. 

"Now I know, then,” I say quietly, standing up. Able to reach for at best, an abstracted satisfaction with his honesty. 

“Doesn’t matter– like I said. All in the past,” the lines of misery on his face smoothed over, and it gives me no comfort. How much more is he hiding? How much do I want to know? 

All of it. 

But perhaps, not any more right now.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations:
> 
>  _Effectus sequitir causam_ \- Effect follows a reason. Latin.
> 
>  _Eodem cubito, eadem trutina, pari libra_ \- Literally, 'the elbow, the same balance, an equal balance'. Colloquially, 'what you give will be returned to you. Latin. 
> 
> _In nullum avarus bonus est, in se pessimus_ \- The covetous man is good to none and worst to himself. Latin. 
> 
> Comments and thoughts very much encouraged <3


	6. October 1972: Endless Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. Sorry it's a bit of a heartbreaker <3 sequels are in the works.

Manco hadn’t realized that in the six months he’d been there, he’d never once heard the telephone ring. 

It cuts through the Berlioz that Angel has left on in his absence, brash and banal. Manco starts, wondering why now would be the time to make a call. And Angel isn’t even here, he’ll be back in a day or so from a job.

_From a job…_

That thought rings against the bells from the symphony, sends him to his feet, the book tumbling to the floor. He glances around the room, looking frantically for a phone. Footsteps, who the hell is that…?

“Manco?" 

Only Susan, staring at him like he’s losing it. He blinks, composing himself.  

"Yeah?”

“It’s for you?” Susan’s skepticism is almost an accusation. 

_It is? If Angel were dead, wouldn’t they have called Susan first? Why you?_

Unless Angel told them to– 

Manco swallows that thought hard, “Where can I take it?" 

"Study,” she jerks her head pointedly in the direction of the nearest office. One of many. He nods, picks up the copy of  _The Catcher in the Rye_  carefully before walking, even gait, to the room with the dark wood paneling. He sits down hard on the desk chair, hesitating before picking up the phone. 

“Hello?" 

"Joseph?" 

_Oh, thank God._

He leans against the carved oak desk, the familiar ring of Pablo Ramirez’s voice calming him down a bit. But then, hadn’t he always said to call in case of emergency?

"Father Paul–” he pulls that name back from Joseph’s tongue, “Everything all right?" 

"Well. Yes and no. You must forgive me, Joseph, it’s not normally my habit to glance at your correspondences with my brother. For many reasons." 

Blondie would snort, if his voice wasn’t so serious. It was one of the few things he’d figured out early on could rattle Tuco, passing on dirty notes via his brother. 

”…so what did it say?“ 

"It was so short, that’s how it attracted my attention. Normally Benedict is more descriptive– well. It says just this,” he clears his throat, a heaviness in his tone that makes Blondie’s stomach plummet to his feet.

“Blondie. Turns out it was all no damn good with Katie. Need to get out of this city but – no car. I don’t know where I’d stay next. I don’t know where I’d go anyways. Tuco. There’s a few things crossed out, something about getting a bacon sandwich, perhaps?”

“Shit,” Blondie breathes before he remembers who he’s talking to.

“…ah, yes. So if you aren’t currently indisposed–”

“I’ll drive straight there.”

“The return address is Burgin Avenue, 200, apartment 122.”

 Thanks for calling, Father,“ he hangs up before saying goodbye, already getting up and moving through the maze of the house. 

_He needs you. He probably needed you for months, and you weren’t listening –_

Blondie snaps off that train of thought suddenly as cutting off a film on television. He’s in the action now. He’s made it to the north bedroom, grabs the untouched stack of postcards, shoves them in the fraying duffel bag. He’s probably got other clothes in the southeast room but– those can go hang– 

_You need to get moving._

Back through the hallways, out to the garage. Did he spot Susan out of the corner of his eye staring? He can hardly tell. He starts his old car, pulls out onto the red streak of the road, and hits the gas without so much as a glance back. 

It isn’t till he’s a half hour out of Las Cruces that the heartbeat in his throat starts to calm a little, that he stops gripping the wheel so tightly that it hurts. That he notices his fingers are sore. 

_But can you stop looking over your shoulder? You’re going to be casting Manco’s shadow for a long time._

_You really think Angel Eyes is going to let you go that easy?_

Heartbeat picks up again. It’s almost hard to breathe, the red mesas whipping past him faster than ever, he should stop, he needs to stop –

_You can’t stop. Tuco needs you._

Tuco needs him. And that story wins out, always was louder than any of the others. Blondie sucks in a hard breath, rolls down the window to let the mid-afternoon fall air whip past his cheeks. It’s about a thousand miles to Baton Rouge. He can’t stop unless it’s absolutely necessary. 

_You can’t go back. Not ever. You just got out–_

Blondie shakes his head, Manco’s story buzzing like a persistent fly on the edges of his mind. That doesn’t matter anymore, none of it. Once a hustler, always a hustler. Once a liar, always a no-good Midwestern layabout who will never amount to anything. 

Once the man who saved Tuco’s life– always. 

The radio station he has on eventually turns to simply static. He stops for a sandwich and gas at the state line, a dusty station with the paint peeling off the pump. He watches the lanky attendant pump gas with surreal familiarity. 

_Didn’t you know you’d always end up back here?_

Blondie never had much of a story. But the road was his birthright. And that was enough to ride off into the sunset on. 

Wasn’t Blondie’s story always Tuco’s, just the same? 

In spite of the familiarity, crumpling up the sandwich wrapper, when he looks up to the passenger’s seat he expects to see Angel’s enigmatic smile. 

 _Fuck_. 

He starts the car. But as the evening begins to glimmer with stars, a trailer of images come unbidden to his mind. The spray of ice on an anonymous rink in a town he thought was nowhere. Angel’s mustache curling up with his lips, sipping a glass of wine in a cramped Italian restaurant. Seeing him pass by in the halls of that ostentatious labyrinth of a home. 

Seeing the way Manco’s presence made him hesitate and smile in turn. The house marked by someone else at last. 

 _You didn’t think it was your home, did you?_  

No. Blondie pushes back that thought. But it’s Angel’s. Home or grave, it’s own mausoleum tied up in so much death– Angel is in bed with all of that, and he was always just a distraction–

 _That’s a lie and you know it._  

He lets out a breath, nothing but his dim headlights illuminating the road ahead. It’s getting too late to be having thoughts like these. At least they’re keeping him awake. Probably will for weeks to come. 

_You really think you can stop thinking about him? That he’ll stop thinking about you?_

Half unconsciously, Blondie leans over to the passenger’s seat, pops open the glove compartment. A single postcard from Dallas left, he could address that to New Mexico as soon as he’s got Tuco safe in Baton Rouge–

_You really think he’ll even think about you?_

Blondie shuts the compartment hard, rubs his eyes. This is pointless, after all. Manco’s story wouldn’t make a lick of sense to Tuco– worse yet, it would probably end with both of them dead. 

_You’re lucky you got out while you still could._

One more frame, then, the image of Angel smoking quietly, alone in a dark and empty library. Blondie had never seen him angry before– would he be? He can’t picture that. What plays out is the same tired melancholy, only intensified by the new absence. 

_Stop thinking about turning back. You know you can’t do that._

He knows.

If saving his partner is how he saves himself, isn’t that the right ending? If he damns Angel doing so, wouldn’t that be what a killer deserves?

_You don’t believe that a damn minute. But you’re never going to be saint enough to save a man like that. You’re barely even enough to save Tuco._

He reaches for a cigarillo, the pack coming up empty. Fine. He’s got at least one more stop before he’ll hit the city. Before he’ll make it just in time, to stop his partner, just in time, to hit the road again like they’ve always done. 

_What’s changed? Didn’t you swear to yourself when you came back, you’d be able to keep him safe this time?_

_What the hell do you think is going to change, Manco?_

Truth is, nothing has, for Blondie. 

And against the backdrop of stars, cities nothing but a glimmer around the edges of the interstate, it’s an easy lie to believe. 

* * *

 

“Angel Eyes." 

I slip the headphones off my ears, having some notion that it’s the second time Susan has addressed me.  _Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur_. 

"Something you need?” I say quietly. She studies me from the door, a flinty bitterness in her eyes. I set the headphones on to the side table. Sunset is crawling up in the window I’d been studying, watching the empty road and occasionally scanning the grounds for any movements. Nothing of note. 

Susan pulls the drapes shut, a sure sign we are to have a private conversation. 

“You to stop being in denial.”

I let out a bitter chuckle. She was never one to mince words. She picks up the headphones, still playing from the tape deck. 

“The Beatles. Really." 

Her skepticism is not unwarranted, although I have been known to enjoy  _Yesterday_ even outside of this numbing wander through the purgatory of Manco’s absence. 

"Did it occur to you there might be a particular reason why I chose not to listen to this on the speakers?”

“What occurred to me was that you were deliberately dulling your senses. That’s not like you." 

"No, it isn’t,” I take out my pipe and light it. Making a point of going through motions that are akin to my usual behavior. Susan stares, mouth drawn in a thin line. 

“It’s been three weeks, Angel Eyes.”

“Yes,” I breathe in the Latakia tobacco. It does little for comfort, filling the chasmous maw of my chest with nothing but a dull heat. 

“…and? What are you going to do about it?”

A question so like her, always one for action. Impatient. I could expect nothing less, of one who came to the profession with the express purpose of murdering her own husband as revenge for a dead brother. 

Some situations demand action, I suppose. Some. 

“What would you have me do, Susan? It’s damning enough I took him with me to Santa Fe,” I set the pipe down, unable to keep up the attentions it necessitates, “I have spent the better part of my life cultivating as few weak points as possible, as few people to put in Rose’s line of fire. If I seek Manco out and he’s dead, nothing’s changed. If I seek him out and he isn’t, then I’ll simply be revealing my hand. And for what?" 

If he isn’t to come back, of his own volition, safe, what more can I do? What could I have done differently?

She frowns, leaning on to her knees to look at me seriously, "You do nothing, that’s just going to be the death of you.”

I laugh bitterly, shaking my head, “You know that’s what Rose said. I believe he meant that to be a threat.”

“Rose means every word he says to be a threat, we both know that. You live your life in fear of that, you’re already giving him what he wants." 

And as always, she’s never hesitated to lay things out as she sees them. I’ve been indebted to her clarity in the past. I try to find something to learn from it now, that doesn’t drive the ache and bitterness deeper into my chest.

"You know, I’m grateful that you never succumbed to ambition the way I did. You could easily have my rank, rather than acting in meekness as the shade of a bodyguard to me. Hiding under the guise of employment." 

Even now, dressed still in her apron and with her hair tied up. She drops the charade only to speak to me plainly, or if I see fit to her. If I’m to be charitable to myself, her experience has allowed her to see in Rose what I hadn’t in my youth– that to enter into his employment was in a sense to let him have ownership over you. True, through careful political moves, a measure of autonomy can be established. And I have my talents at that pursuit. 

I’d underestimated, of course, how exhausting keeping that up for years would be. 

"Cut the sentiment. You know why I’m here,” Susan falls in to the change in subject, and I hone in on that. Much easier to speak of our distant mentorship than to delve into the reasons why I must treat Manco’s disappearance as nothing more than what I expected.

 _Maledizione_ , whyever did I expect anything more than that?

“You deny the sentiment in it?”

“It was never for you and you know it." 

No, we’d had our frank conversations about the nature of our relationship, mainly after our later training sessions in the shooting range, still kept up even after her husband was buried. I, a stand-in for her murdered brother, and herself– would I call her a stand-in for my younger self? A desire to play-act as my mentor, take a stab at providing for someone the same blessing and curse she handed to me?

Not that I blame Alma for that. Not that Susan did not demand this with full foreknowledge. That much we had in common. 

"Then why have this conversation at all?”

“I’d have had it with him. Not that he’d have listened, he’d have been more than half drunk for it.”

“Ah, but you’re hoping I might listen,” I tap my gloved fingers on my knee, letting my lips curl in a way that they often do around Rose. 

“You’re trying to turn this on me, it won’t work. You’re very clever Angel Eyes, but clever isn’t what gets you out of something like this.”

Of course, Susan has never been someone who I’ve needed to hide around. Rather, she’s perhaps the only living person I categorically should not hide from. 

“You’re right,” I admit readily, and it’s true. His shadow has been cast over me, the faint musk of his cigarillos hanging like a ghost in every room we’d kept company. Most days I wonder if it’s simply my imagination. 

Is he alive? Has his past caught up to him, whatever that entailed? 

Could it have anything to do with this partner he alluded to? He’d said this man was as important to him as Alma to myself, and I could hardly stand to hear that. That much had been stalking my thoughts, ever since he’d haltingly admitted to the recipient of the letters.  I steeple my fingers. If it’s that fear that is truly preventing me from learning of his fate, it would be a poor thing. 

I wonder, damnably, if Susan suspects anything to that end. That he's left me, for another. 

When she speaks next, it’s quiet and devoid of her earlier sharpness, "I’ll tell you something. About him, that I hoped he’d tell you but I don’t think he did. Birds of a damn feather…”

“…what?”

Her lips twist, like she regrets mentioning it to my eagerness. I’ve got too much hollowness in me to feel shame for that. She shakes out a cigarette, as she does when she’s off her job’s persona, “It was in the kitchen, I asked him if you were training him. He said a few interesting things to that. Mostly that he thought he’d get killed if he stuck around here any longer. That he’d stumbled into all of this.”

She takes the box of matches from the table, draws one seamlessly to light, “I told him he should be telling that to you, not me, of course. You know what he said then? Said he might be more afraid of disappointing you than dying.”

 _Amor no correspondido, tiempo perdido_. I had not accepted my fear, that all of this was but sugar-crusted folly, for all my attentions. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Her brow softens with apology.

“Susan, I –” I don’t finish that sentence. I’m not sure what to finish it with.

“Think he was crazy about you too – still is, if he’s out there.” 

"He’s changed me, Susan. That’s the terrible truth of it." 

To articulate it is nothing, surprisingly, a droplet of blood into the fathomless ocean left by his absence. I’ve had the pain of reckoning with that thought, and it’s no sharper to hear it said aloud, to have someone bear witness. 

"You have changed. But now that he’s gone, what you do with that is up to you." 

She’s damnably right about that, too. And the more I lay out my options – the more I’m unwilling to take the risk, for his sake, and for this stranger he compared to Alma. What I am, the life I’ve chained myself to – if he wants no part in that, I cannot fault him. 

But what, then, if there is some force that gives him no choice? What, then, if he had need of me?

As if sensing the thought that has been haunting me for days, Susan takes out her cigarette with resignation, "I’ll help you find out if he’s alive." 

Even still, I’m surprised by the offer. Even still, I shouldn’t accept it – would that not simply add another person I care about to potential collateral? 

“I can’t have you compromise your position – if you’re found out–”

“I won’t be. Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” she says it with such contemptuous steel. Her disguise is impeccable – it would have to be, to keep Rose fooled – sometimes even I forget how dangerous she could be, if she so chose. 

“I’ll. Consider it then. Yes. Alright,” for once, I accept the help, without recourse, from another killer. Or rather, for the first time since Alma. 

“So I will, then,” she stands, stubbing out the cigarette carelessly as she does. Then she thinks better of leaving it in the ashtray. As always, best to leave no evidence that we are ever familiar. 

“Thank you,” I say, with the naked sincerity her favor deserves. She shakes her head, stalking over to the curtains.

“You should think about what you’ll do, if he is alive.”

“I have” I say quietly. She nods once, before flooding the room with sunlight, this time turning back in meek deference. Our roles restored. 

I have thought of it, and though all the increasingly implausible explanations my mind suggests for his absence, each response to them equally implausible – this much they have as commonality. 

That I come back, in memory, to our time shared together – of skills and stories traded with equal care, touch given with what I could almost call tenderness, if I had any reference for such an experience beyond that of books and paintings. 

The ability to voice my thoughts freely, if carefully, with one would I could almost say understood me. 

I stand, tightening the straps of my gloves, almost unconsciously. Look out into the deep red sunset over the arid landscape.  _Memento mori_ , not simply the moment of death itself, but life in all its moments that kill by time rather than any weapon. 

Whatever the outcome, wherever he has couched himself, whatever harm or safety I will find him in – alive or dead as it were. 

I will do as I must, to remember how he has reshaped what I believe to be possible. And with or without him, then – act in accordance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language translations:
> 
>  _Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur_ \- The world desires to be deceived; therefore it is. Latin. 
> 
> _Amor no correspondido, tiempo perdido_ \- Literally, love uncorresponded, time lost. Colloquially, to love and not be loved is time badly employed. Spanish. 
> 
> _Memento mori_ \- Remember death, remember you are to die. Latin.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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